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Power For Service 

By 

Rev, J. Benj* Lawrence 


INTRODUCTION 

By 

Rev. B. H. Carroll, D.D., LL.D. 


New Orleans, La. 

Charles O. Chalmers, Publisher, 

From the Press of New Orleans Christian Advocate, 
No. 512 Camp Street, 

1909. 


* 



Copyright applied for. 


|ufijp\iTy of’ooS‘saIss| 

IwOirOOiCS SlSCtiivSH ' 

MAY 23 WU9 

* .ill V 


CONTENTS 






1. THE PERSON OF POWER 1 

2. THE DIVINE PARACLETE . . 14 

3. CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 28 

4. THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 41 

5. THE PLACE OF PENTECOST IN THE 

PLAN OF REDEMPTION 53 

5. A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 68 

7. A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 86 

8. THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 107 

9. THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST... 126 

10. THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN 

LIFE 154 

11. THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE 165 

12. GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 180 

13. THE PRICE OF POWER 193 

14. WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FILLED WITH 

THE SPIRIT 209 

15. SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 226 

16. THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 242 

17. THE PLACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT’S 

WORK IN THE RELIGIOUS LIFE OF 
TO-DAY 252 




> 








PKEFACE 


About six years ago there fell into my hands a 
little tract the reading of which set in motion 
spiritual elements and currents of thought which 
wrought a complete change in the character of my 
ministry. The subject of that tract was “Rivers of 
Living Water.” The writer was Dr. B. H. Carroll. 
I immediately began a study of the Person and Work 
of the Holy Spirit. This book is the result of that 
study. And Dr. Carroll, who more than any other 
man has influenced my religious life by first start- 
ing these currents of thought, writes the intro- 
duction. 

I am aware that others have written upon this 
subject, and yet I feel that the present effort is not 
less worth making on that account. The greatest 
questions are never new. We can hardly hope for 
more, in any case, than the individual outlook. It 
is only after the period of intensest discussion has 
passed that we are best prepared to come to a 
definite understanding. This question has had its 
day of discussion. We are now prepared to sit down 
and in sober thought review the field and mark the 
points of contact with the Word of Cod. 

This I have endeavored to do. As far as possible 
I have steered clear of all theories. I have tried 
to make the style clear and simple. All technical 
and theological terms have been avoided. I have 
written for the people and in the language of the 
people. The Bible has been my text-book, and in 
order not to confuse the reader I have given the 
references in the body of the work, instead of in 
foot notes. 

In sending this little book forth I cherish the hope 

v 


that it will help some one to a richer and more 
unified life in his relation both to Cod and his 
fellow-man. May it stir up in its readers not only 
to study this subject for themselves, but to pray 
that God may throughout the bounds of His whole 
Kingdom give the Holy Spirit in power. It is when 
the tide comes in, that every pool is filled, and all 
are lost in the great ocean. Bring in the floodtides 
of thy power, O Lord. 

J. BENJ. LAWRENCE. 


Ti 


INTRODUCTION 


BY B. H. CARROLL, D.D., LL.D. 

Every Christian is complete in Christ. That is, 
as soon as we receive Christ we thereby receive 
a title to all our inheritance. But by the Spirit only 
do we enter into and take possession of any part 
of it. Nor do we take possession of all of it at 
once. We realize it, blessing by blessing, each in 
its own order, as we are fitted for it. All the 
blessings are secured to us by promises. But faith-'" 
must lay hold of and appropriate each promise. 
That is why it is said: “The just shall live by 
faith.” Or, as the lamented Dr. Gordon so happily 
puts it: “It is the Spirit’s office to make true in us 
what Christ has made true for us.” Let me re- 
state and enumerate: 

1. All the gifts, graces and blessings of salva- 
tion for Christians are for them in Christ. 

2. To receive Christ entitles one to all of them. 

3. All of them are guaranteed in the promises 
of God. 

4. But none of them are realized by us except 
as the Holy Spirit applies them. 

5. This application is not all at once, and never 
as a matter of course. 

6. The Christian is led by the Spirit to claim, 
pray for, hope for and lay hold on each promised 
blessing in its order. 

I say the Christian must prefer his claim and 
plead the promise. He must ask for it. He must 
hope for it. He must, by a special act of faith, lay 
hold of and appropriate it. In this way he “works 
out his own salvation in fear and trembling, for 


vii 


it is God (the Spirit) that worketh in him both to will 
and to do of his own good pleasure.” 

With the bare statement of these six great prin- 
ciples of the plan of salvation, I will unite this addi- 
tional proposition: our Lord’s own life on earth is 
both the highest model and the brightest illustra- 
tion of the practical working of these principles. 
Therefore, I want to cite the glorious example of 
Christ in obtaining one inestimable blessing prom- 
ised by Him, and then point out the correspondence 
there should be with us in regard to the same 
blessing. What is the great covenant blessing 
which so many lack? What is that rich gift of 
grace whose non-appropriation shuts us off from joy 
and power? Whose absence dishonors Christ and 
robs the lost world of light and influence? What 
is that glorious property to which in Christ we hold 
the title which, so to speak, we have never even 
recorded, and hence whose possession we have never 
consciously realized, utilized and enjoyed? To 
these questions the answer is given by Christ: “He 
that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath said, 
out of him shall flow rivers of living water. But 
this spake he of the Spirit, which they that be- 
lieved on him were to receive; for the Spirit was 
not yet; because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 
vii: 38-39, Revised Version.) 

The great covenant blessing, then, is the Holy 
Spirit himself dwelling in the Christian, filling the 
Christian, so filling him full to overflowing and out- 
going that the fittest illustration of it is “a well of 
water springing up into everlasting life,” or a pe- 
rennial fountain, whose unseen reservoir is so deep 
and vast that, not a trickling streamlet, but a 
mighty river issues forth from the fountain-head. 


viii 


Whoever has gone in a boat and rested with poised 
oar over the head-spring of the San Marcos, and 
looked down into the pellucid depths of that boiling 
fountain which at the very outset pours forth a river 
of crystal water — and it has been so pouring it 
forth from a prehistoric period — he has looked 
upon God’s illustration of the indwelling and out- 
flowing Spirit. 

The blessing under consideration is so great a 
blessing as to be called a river. Yes, “rivers,” as that 
river in Eden which parted into four heads. Gen. 2 : 10. 
Just what it is and for what purpose it is bestowed 
is worthy of most serious thought. To the receiv- 
er it must be the occasion of great joy. It surely 
also confers courage and power. On the whole, I 
am much disposed to regard its principal purpose 
as designed to benefit others rather than the re- 
cipient. We describe the outflow of a mountain 
spring as a laughing, sparkling, singing stream, 
mirroring the stars by night and catching the sun- 
light by day — a happy thing in itself considered. 
But when we inquire why it flows forth, we look 
at the barren waste made glad by it, the desert 
converted into a garden, the flowers that bloom and 
the fruits that ripen on its borders, the birds that 
sing in the bowers fertilized by it, the thirsty ones 
that drink of its clear, cool waters. So, mainly 
and primarily, the object of conferring the light and 
power of this divine blessing on any Christian is 
not to gratify his selfish desire to feel good, but to 
dower him for others to whom he transmits the bene- 
fits of the grace given. As our Lord's own life is, 
as has been said, not only the highest example and 
brightest illustration both of the method by which 
this grace is received, and of the purpose of its be- 


ix 


stowal, we cannot do better than to consider the 
model set before us by our great Exemplar. 

“The Spirit of the Lord GTod is upon me; because 
the Lord has anointed me to preach the gospel to 
the poor. He hath sent me to bind up the broken- 
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are bound; to 
proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the 
day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that 
mourn; to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, 
to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy 
for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit 
of heaviness, that they might be called trees of 
righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He 
might be glorified.” (Isa. 61:1-3.) Here is a prom- 
ise to Jesus Christ that the Spirit shall rest upon 
Him, to enable Him to preach the gospel to the 
poor; to preach deliverance to the captives; to open 
the eyes of the blind; to set prisoners free; to 
preach with power the acceptable year of the Lord; 
to enable Him to give joy to the mourner and praise 
to the one who had heaviness of spirit. 

Do you notice the fact that from the birth qf 
Jesus Christ until He was thirty years old He never 
preached a sermon? Why? The Spirit of the Lord, 
as promised in the Scriptures cited, was not yet on 
Him. From the birth of Christ until He was thir- 
ty years old He wrought no miracle. What was 
He doing? He was waiting for the promise of 
the Father. He was waiting for His creden- 
tials. He was waiting for power to rest upon 
Him. He was waiting for this very promise that 
God had spoken concerning the Messiah to be real- 
ized in Him. Let us see the precise method by 
which He laid hold of and appropriated to himself 


x 


the promises. The third chapter of Luke tells us 
exactly when the great crisis came, and it was a 
crisis: “Now, when all the people were baptized it 
came to pass that Jesus, also being baptized, 
prayed.” 

Now, what followed? The heaven was opened and 
the Holy Ghost descended in bodily shape like a 
dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven, 
which said: “Thou art my beloved son, in whom I 
am well pleased.” Now He is endowed with power. 
Now He can do the work of the Messiah. And I 
ask you to notice that from this time on in the 
life of Christ, a change takes place in the reference 
to Him. From now on it is said that whatever He 
does. He does by the Spirit. 

Just as certain as it was appointed unto Him as 
the Messiah to receive the Spirit to enable Him to 
do the work which was given Him to do, so certain 
was it requisite that the believer should be so en- 
dued before he could do the work which was given 
him to do; and though the disciples were believers, 
though they had been baptized, and though they had 
been instructed, yet He says to them: “Tarry here 
at Jerusalem until you are endued with power from 
on high.” You cannot do what I tell you to do in 
your own strength. You are certain to fail if you 
try. You can only succeed as you have received 
the Spirit. 

Three men had agreed to study the New Testa- 
ment with reference to its teachings concerning the 
Holy Spirit, and after they had studied it each 
one reached the conclusion that the gift of the 
Spirit of God to a Christian was a definite trans- 
action; that in this transaction the recipient had 
something to do; that it was as definite as 


xi 


is faith in Christ, and that he must get at it 
like he got at Christ; that he must believe in 
the Spirit as he believed in Jesus Christ; that 
by faith he must take hold of the Spirit as he took 
hold of Christ. Well, now, after this conversation 
one of the three said: “It is perfectly evident to me 
that I have not yet that river-gift of the Spirit.” 
“Well, why do you say so?” “Because I am with- 
out the evidences. I do trust in Jesus Christ as 
my Savior. I am converted, but I am having a 
hard time of it as a Christian. There is not enough 
joy in it. I wish there were more. Then, I have 
not the power.” Another said to him: “Are you 
in earnest about wishing in your heart that you 
did have that gift of the Spirit that would fill your 
heart with joy and give you power with God and 
men?” “Yes.” “Well, is it just the joy that you 
are after?” “No,” he said, “this is the point: It 
seems to me that my Christian example is amounting 
to very litttle. I do not see that I am having any 
influence over the people around me. I am not lead- 
ing them to Christ. I cannot pray like I want to 
pray. I cannot feel when I am praying that I am com- 
ing in touch with God. I cannot feel God’s presence.” 
Well, that was an honest soul. The other said: 
“Would you like to?” “I would.” “Will you hon- 
estly do just what the Bible says do, to obtain it?” 
“I will.” “Will you commence right now?” “I 
will.” I say I knew of this case. I was one of 
the three, and I could (but will not) give the names 
of the others. That man was three weeks in an 
agony, emptying himself to make ready for the re- 
ception of the Spirit, bringing his faith up to the 
point that it would naturally take hold of the prom- 
ise and not turn it loose. He was three weeks, but 


xii 


it did not make any difference about how long it 
was. There was no necessity for it to have been 
that long, just as there is no necessity for a man 
to be a month in accepting Christ; but some people 
get to it that way, and it took that man three weeks 
to get ready. But one thing is certain. He did 
receive the gift and it did give him conscious, eter- 
nal joy, and it did give him power, and he would 
not have exchanged it for all the wealth of the 
world. 

If there is any secret in any success that I have 
ever attained (and I have had some) it is that I 
have gone through that very process intelligently 
and continuously before I entered upon any great 
work. When I went out to raise that $80,000 for 
Baylor University I never moved a step in it until 
I had isolated from everybody in this world and 
stayed alone with God and fought the battle to a 
finish there before I ever opened my lips to men, 
and there did come upon me a consciousness of 
spiritual power that promised absolute success — a 
deep conviction that never wavered a hair’s breadth 
until the thing was finished. And just exactly that 
way before I started to raise that $10,000 for State 
Missions. The whole battle was fought out with 
God before I went to fight it with men. I know 
that “power belongeth to God.” I know that if man 
is not endued with power from on high that he can- 
not do anything. There is not a man on the face 
of the earth that can give to the sinner a spark 
of genuine faith, that can give him evangelical re- 
pentance. 

Perhaps you inquire, is not this gift once re- 
ceived continuous? Or is it intermittent? I can 
answer this not very satisfactorily to myself. You 
know that some very bold, well-defined Texas rivers, 


xiii 


in some parts of their channels, sink underground 
for miles, and then come up again lower down as 
well defined as ever. This particularly in droughty 
times. The flow, however, does not stop. There 
is a current. Such a river illustrates, at least, 
my own experience. The first time I ever felt 
what I call this gift of the Spirit was soon after my 
conversion, as referred to in the close of “My In- 
fidelity and What Became Of It,” and the second 
time was twenty years ago in a meeting at Belton. 
The sensation the second time was tremendous and 
startling. It was no “dripping spring;” it was a 
“river.” It came after something like a Geth- 
semane of prayer for power. I must say that after- 
wards this river somehow got to running under- 
ground, though there was always a current. After 
I buried my boy, Guy, the river rose to the surface 
and was like the “Father of Waters.” With me, 
as trials come, I seek fresh power — renewals of 
this gift, if you please to call them so. My faith 
seems ever unwilling to say: “There was a river,” 
but always to say, “There is a river whose streams 
make glad the City of God.” Anyhow, he is a 
foolish Christian who ever goes out to war in his 
own strength. Tarry in prayer until you are 
endued with power from on high. That is a fixed 
principle in God’s government. You must intelli- 
gently look at this matter for yourself. Do you 
want it? Will you try for it? Will you pray for 
it? Will you claim it? There is the promise that 
every one that believeth on Jesus Christ is entitled 
to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Go down in 
the valley of humiliation. Search your heart. 
See what the things are that are keeping out the 
peace and joy and power, and lay yourself down as 
an offering before God. “Lord, here I am. Help 
me to trust, ‘though the sun goes down and it is 
dark,’ until appears the ‘smoking furnace and the 
burning lamp,' which signify the acceptance of the 
offering.” 


xiv 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


I. 

THE PERSON OF POWER. 

“In the last day, that great day of the 
feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, if any 
man thirst let him come unto me and drink. 
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture 
hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of 
living water.” (John 7:37-38.) Just before 
He was caught away from the earth Christ 
said to the expectant group standing around 
him, “Tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be 
endued with power from on high, and ye 
shall receive power, the Holy Ghost coming 
upon you.” (Acts 1:8.) 

Here we have startling statements. In the 
first instance we are told that rivers of 
living water shall flow out of those who be- 
lieve. In the other instance we are informed 
that power shall rest upon the disciples 
when they receive the Holy Spirit. This 


1 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


is a distinct advance in the teaching of 
Christ. He declares that in His followers 
there shall abide a positive force for right- 
eousness. In the first teaching He is pre- 
paring them for the fuller announcement of 
the character of this indwelling power. In 
the last teaching, the time having come 
when He must ascend to the Father, He is 
giving the promise of an enduement which 
shall equip them for the task of evangeliz- 
ing the world. 

But we are interested most of all to know 
the nature of this promised power which 
shall be in the hearts of the disciples of 
Christ. We are informed that it is the 
Spirit. But what spirit? Some tell us that 
it is simply an influence emanating from 
the Divine One. Others tell us that it is 
a peculiar power of the inspired Word. 
While still others tell us that the Spirit 
here promised is a person distinct from the 
Father and from the Son, and yet of the 
same divine essence. Until we have settled 
this question and come to a true under- 
standing of the nature of the Holy Spirit, 


2 


THE PERSON OF POWER 


we cannot get a just conception of His 
work. 

We are so muck accustomed to speak of 
the influence of the Spirit that I am afraid 
we have acquired the habit of regarding 
Him as an emanation flowing from the 
Father and the Son, but not as being actu- 
ally a person. I know that it is not easy 
to grasp the conception of the Holy Spirit 
as a person. We think of the Father as 
a person, because his acts are such as we 
can understand. We see Him hang the 
world in ether; we behold Him swaddling 
a new-born sea in bands of darkness, and 
we know that such acts are the acts of a 
person. It is so with the Son : we can real- 
ize that He is a person, because He is bone 
of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. It takes 
no great stretch of the imagination to pic- 
ture the Babe in Bethlehem, or behold the 
“Man of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief,” or the King of martyrs, as He was 
persecuted in Pilate’s hall, or nailed to the 
accursed tree for our sins. Nor do we find 
it very hard to realize Jesus sitting on his 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


throne in heaven; or, girt with clouds and 
wearing the diadem of all creation, calling 
the earth to judgment, and summoning us 
to hear the final sentence. But when we 
come to deal with the Holy Spirit, His oper- 
ations are so mysterious, His doings are so 
secret, His acts are so removed from every 
thing that is of sense that we cannot so 
easily get the idea of His being a person. 
But we must; for he is not simply an ema- 
nation flowing from the Father: He is as 
much a person as is the Father and the 
Son. 

We are not, therefore, to consider the 
name Spirit as one of the titles of God, des- 
ignating Him at work in a certain realm, 
hut as a name given to denote a person dis- 
tinct from the Father and the Son. He is a 
distinct personality. He has the character- 
istics of personality: consciousness, char- 
acter, will. He is an intelligent being, 
who can say “I,” who can be addressed as 
“thou,” and who can act and be acted 
upon. 


4 


THE PERSON OF POWER 


Designations Proper to Personality . 

The divine writers, in speaking of the 
Holy Spirit, have used designations proper 
only to personality. You will notice some 
of them. 

Christ, in speaking of the Spirit, says: 
“Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is 
come, He will guide you into all truth; for 
He shall not speak of Himself; but what- 
soever He shall hear that shall He also 
speak. He shall glorify me; for He shall 
take of mine and show it unto you.” (John 
16:13-15.) Here the masculine pronoun, 
the strongest form with which to express 
personality, is used no less than ten times. 
( See also John 14 :26 ; 16 :7-8 ; Eph. 1 :13. ) 

The Spirit is called the Comforter, which 
is a name of personality. Jesus said to His 
disciples, “I will not leave you comfortless 
(John 14:18) ; and the Comforter, which is 
the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
send in my name, He will teach you all 
things.” (John 14:26.) In all these pas- 
sages the word “paraclete” is used. The 


5 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


term denotes an intelligent agent and not 
an abstract quality or influence. The Com- 
forter, Instructor, Patron, Guide, Advo- 
cate, whom this term brings before us must 
be a person. This is evident from its ap- 
plication to Christ in 1 John 2:1, where 
Christ is called the Advocate, “Paracla- 
ton,” with the Father. 

Powers of Rational Understanding. 

There are also personal powers of ration- 
al understanding ascribed to the Holy Spir- 
it. 

In the twelfth chapter of I Corinthians 
Paul attributes every gift of wisdom to the 
Spirit. “Now there are diversities of gifts,” 
says he, “but one Spirit.” And then after 
enumerating the different gifts, he says: 
“But all these worketh that one and the self- 
same Spirit, dividing to every man sever- 
ally as He wills.” The last phrase, “as He 
wills,” signifies that the Spirit acts in the 
distribution of these gifts upon His own 
choice and judgment. He is Sovereign in 


6 


THE PERSON OF POWER 


His realm. This designates personal pow- 
ers. 

In speaking of the wisdom of God as 
manifested in the Gospel, Paul says: “But 
w T e speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, 
even the hidden wisdom, wdiich God or- 
dained before the w r orld unto our glory; 
which none of the princes of this world 
knew; for had they known it they would 
not have crucified the Lord of glory. * * * 
But God hath revealed them unto us by 
His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all 
things, yea, the deep things of God.” In 
this passage the Spirit is represented as 
intelligently looking into those inscrutable 
regions, above all that the eye can see and 
that comes up into the heart of man; into 
those regions w^here God’s plans for man- 
kind are developed, and bringing those 
plans out and revealing them unto man. 
Surely, if He is able to make knowrn to us 
the mind of God and unfold to us the 
mighty working of the divine will. He must 
be more than a mere influence. 


7 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Performs Personal Acts. 

The Holy Spirit is represented as per- 
forming a number of personal acts. In the 
Scriptures, some of which have already 
been quoted, the following acts are ascribed 
to the Holy Spirit: He creates (Gen. 1:1) ; 
He searches (1 Cor. 2:10); He speaks 
(Acts 13:2); He intercedes (Rom. 8:26); 
He testifies (Jno. 15:26) ; He guides (Rom. 
8:14); He teaches (Jno. 14:26); He com- 
munes with (2 Cor. 13:14) ; He gives power 
(Acts 1:8, 10:38); He convicts (John 
16:8-11); He regenerates (John 3:8); He 
calls and commissions (Acts 13:2-3, 
20:28); He inspires (2 Peter 1:21); He 
sanctifies (1 Peter 1:2); He quickens our 
bodies (Rom. 8:11). Here are no less than 
fourteen different personal acts. How can 
a person be more clearly set forth? This, 
then, cannot be a mere attribute or power 
of God, but must be a person. 

Manifested in Visible Form. 

The Holy Spirit has manifested Himself 
in visible form in direct connection with 


8 


THE PERSON OF POWER 


the Father and the Son, and yet distinct 
from them. 

In the story of creation, in the first chap- 
ter of Genesis, we read : “The earth was 
without form and void, and darkness 
was upon the face of the deep, and the 
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the 
waters. And God said, Let there be light: 
and there was light.” (Gen. 1:2-3.) Here 
we have the creating Father and the 
“brooding Spirit” at work together in the 
formation of the earth. Behold the proc- 
ess. There is the chaos, the seething 
waters, the wild abyss, the starless night, 
and over it all, over the darkness and deso- 
lation the Spirit of God, like a mother-dove, 
brooded until there was brought into being 
the bright and happy world. 

The descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at 
His baptism in the form of a dove as re- 
corded by Matthew (3:16), Mark (1:10), 
Luke (3:22), John (1:32), shows in bold 
relief the Holy Spirit in visible manifesta- 
tion, and yet in direct connection with the 
Father and the Son. 


9 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


He was also manifested in the tongues 
of fire on the day of Pentecost. “And when 
the day of Pentecost was fully come 
suddenly there came a sound as of a rush- 
ing mighty wind from heaven, and it filled 
all the house where they were sitting. And 
there appeared unto them cloven tongues 
like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.” 
Here is a direct manifestation of the Holy 
Spirit’s presence apart from the Father and 
the Son. These visible manifestations show 
that the Spirit is a person. An influence 
cannot appear in any visible form. We 
cannot see an attribute. Powers cannot 
assume form and shape. Only a person 
can. The Holy Spirit must, then, be a per- 
son since He has been seen by mortal eyes, 
and has come under the cognizance of mor- 
tal sense. 

Affected by Acts of Others. 

The Holy Spirit is affected as a person 
by the acts of others. Certain feelings are 
ascribed to the Spirit, which can only be 
understood upon the supposition that He is 
actually a person. 


10 


THE PERSON OF POWER 


“And Peter said unto Ananias, why hast 
Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy 
Ghost, and to keep back part of the price 
of the land?” (Acts 5:3-4.) Paul, in his 
instruction to the Ephesians, says: “And 
grieve not the Holy Spirit whereby ye are 
sealed unto the day of redemption.” (Eph. 
4:30.) Only a person can perceive an in- 
sult or be offended by it. 

Christ says all manner of sin and blas- 
phemy shall be forgiven unto men, but 
blasphemy of the Holy Ghost shall not be 
forgiven unto men. (Matt. 12:31.) Blas- 
phemy against the Holy Ghost cannot be 
blasphemy against a mere influence ema- 
nating from God, for then blasphemy 
against an influence of the Deity would be 
a greater sin than blasphemy against the 
Deity Himself. That against which the un- 
pardonable sin is committed must be more 
than a mere influence — it must be a person. 

These considerations are sufficient to es- 
tablish the personality of the Holy Spirit. 
It is the Holy Spirit who regenerates the 
soul. It is the Holy Spirit who imparts 


11 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


the first gleam of life, convicting us of sin, 
of righteousness, and of judgment to come; 
and after the flame is kindled it is the 
Spirit that fans it with the breath of His 
mouth and keeps it alive. Oh! can it be 
said that it is the Holy Spirit who strives 
in men’s souls; that it is the Holy Spirit 
who brings them to the foot of Sinai, and 
then guides them into the sweet place called 
Calvary; can it be said that the Spirit does 
all these things, and yet is not a Person? 
Surely not. 

Nor can these passages be explained on 
the ground of personification. It is indeed 
admitted that inanimate and irrational 
things are introduced as speaking and are 
addressed as persons. But this creates 
no difficulty. The Spirit is introduced as 
a person so often, not in excited and poetic 
discourse, but in simple narrative and di- 
dactic instruction, and His personality is 
sustained by so many collateral proofs that 
to attempt to dispose of it on the ground 
of personification would be to do violence 
to all the rules of interpretation. 


12 


THE PERSON OF TOWER 


Let us, then, grasp the personality of the 
Spirit. This is essential to the completion 
of our faith. Without this glorious doc- 
trine we have no Trinity. A gospel with- 
out the Trinity is a pyramid upon its apex. 
Get, then, the thought of the three persons 
in the Godhead, know the Father and the 
Son and the Holy Spirit, and you have the 
marrow of all divinity. This is the golden 
key to all the secrets of divine grace; this 
is the silken clue to the labyrinth of all di- 
vine mystery, this is the open door to all 
divine power. 



13 


II. 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE. 

The system of redemption cannot fail to 
excite the gratitude and admiration of 
every serious inquirer. Great and marvel- 
ous indeed are those dispensations of divine 
grace which are unfolded in the Bible. Who 
can contemplate the person, the character, 
the work, and the offices of the Savior with- 
out being stirred to the very depth of his 
being? The cross is the proof supreme and 
eternal of the everlasting love of God. And 
yet all this provision for our deliverance 
would be totally useless if there were not 
some divine influence exerted upon our 
minds to induce our ready response to the 
call of divine love. Such an influence is 
afforded. The Holy Spirit is the divine 
and sovereign agent in the economy of 
man’s salvation that makes effectual appli- 
cation to us of all that Christ hath done and 
suffered for us. 


n 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


This person, who bears so important a 
part in the wondrous plan of human re- 
demption, must be of matchless dignity. 
He is above the angels, for they are repre- 
sented as desiring to look into the marvel- 
ous doings of God in the unfolding of the 
Gospel scheme of salvation. (1 Peter 1 :12.) 
Surely, then, being admitted to a part in 
that amazing system by which the earth is 
to be redeemed; associated with the mighty 
Son of God in the matchless movement of 
all the ages ; being a factor in things which 
angels desire to look into; we cannot think 
of His being employed as an inferior agent, 
but He must possess all the glories of the 
Godhead, and be equal with the Father and 
the Son. That such is the case it is now our 
purpose to show. 

On this point there is little dispute. So 
completely do the Scriptures identify the 
Holy Spirit with God, representing Him as 
possessing divine attributes and exercising 
divine prerogatives, that since the fourth 
century His divinity has not been denied by 
those who admit His personality. 


15 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Divine Titles Ascribed to Him. 

The titles ascribed to the Holy Spirit are 
such as belong to God only. In the Old 
Testament all that is said of Jehovah is 
said of the Spirit of Jehovah. In the New 
Testament the same mode of representation 
is continued. There is no hint that he is 
not divine, but every indication that the di- 
vine writers recognized Him as equal with 
the Father and the Son. 

Peter says to Ananias, “Why hast Satan 
filled thy heart to lie unto the Holy Ghost? 
Thou hast not lied unto men, but unto 
God.” (Acts 5:3-4.) Here in the most ex- 
press and full sense of the word the Holy 
Spirit is called God. To lie to the Holy 
Spirit is to lie to God. If the Spirit be not 
divine, then this passage is made to teach a 
direct falsehood. 

Isaiah says, “Then said I, woe is me! 
* * * for I have seen the King, the Lord 
of Hosts.” (Isaiah 6:5-9.) Paul, quoting 
this same passage, says: “Well spake the 
Holy Ghost by the prophet Isaiah unto our 
fathers.” (Acts 28:25-27.) Here the per- 


16 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


son who appeared to Isaiah and who is 
called by him the “Lord of Hosts,” of 
whose glory the whole earth is full, is by 
Paul called the Holy Spirit. This is one of 
the highest titles of Deity. 

He is also called the “Spirit of God,” 
and the “Spirit of the Lord.” These titles, 
the Spirit of God and the Spirit of the 
Lord, are each used about twenty-five 
times in the Scriptures, and are as conclu- 
sive of His divinity, says Strong, as are the 
passages which speak of Christ as the Son 
of God conclusive of the divinity of the Son. 
Spirit is nothing but the innermost prin- 
ciple of life — it is the essence of the life. 
The spirit of man is man. So the Spirit of 
God must be God — must be of the same di- 
vine essence — must be divine. 

We cannot hesitate to pronounce the one 
to whom the sacred writers apply such 
exalted titles anything less than divine. 
Identified with God in names and titles as 
the Spirit is, we cannot doubt that He is 
God. 


17 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Divine Attributes Ascribed To The Spirit. 

His attributes will also lead us to the 
same conclusion. There are certain perfec- 
tions appropriate to Deity, which we con- 
sider as incommunicable to any creature, 
and by these the Holy Spirit is described 
and distinguished. 

In Hebrews we find this passage, “How/ 
much more shall the blood of Christ, who 
through the eternal Spirit offered Himself 
without spot to God, purge your con- 
science from dead works to serve the living 
God.” (Heb. 9:14.) In this passage the 
Spirit which overshadowed the virgin in 
the divine conception, which came upon 
Christ at His baptism in the form of a dove, 
and through whom He offered Himself to 
God without spot, is called the Eternal 
Spirit. This is an attribute of God alone. 

In Romans we have this expression : 
“Through mighty signs and wonders by the 
power of the Spirit of God.” (Rom. 15:19.) 
He is also called “the Power of the High- 
est,” and “the Finger of God.” (Luke 1:35, 


18 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


11 :20. ) That this power of the Spirit is om- 
nipotent is evident from the fact that the 
most wonderful works of the Lord are as- 
cribed to Him. This supreme power be- 
longs to God alone. When we find it attrib- 
uted to the Spirit and behold the Spirit ex- 
ercising it we are bound to admit that the 
Spirit is God. 

Paul tells us that the Spirit searcheth 
all things, “Yea the deep things of God.” 
( 1 Cor. 2 :10. ) It is here declared that the 
mind of God is entirely known to the Spirit. 
All regions are laid open to Him. In fact* 
the whole realm of divine intelligence and 
divine activity is occupied by the Holy 
Spirit. His knowledge is commensurate 
with the knowledge of God. The conscious- 
ness of God is the consciousness of the 
Spirit. He pervades every avenue of divine 
thought. Surely, He can be no less than 
divine. 

The Psalmist says: “Whither shall I 
flee from thy presence?” Paul says: “Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, that 
the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?” (1 Cor. 


19 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


3:16.) Christ promised His disciples that, 
“Where two or three are gathered in His 
name there He would be in the midst of 
them, and that to own and bless.” (Matt. 
18:20.) Here He is presented as the Om- 
nipresent One. He fills the earth with His 
presence. Though you take the wings of 
the morning, and fly away to the uttermost 
parts of the earth — lo, He is there. Though 
two or three trembling souls meet in dark, 
damp, subterranean caverns, from the eyes 
of men hidden away — lo, the Spirit hath 
spied them out, and is in their midst to 
own and bless. Wherever a human heart 
trusts in Christ there is erected a tem- 
ple of the Holy Ghost, and He immediate- 
ly comes and fills it, and all over the world 
to-day the tens of thousands of living tem- 
ples are the abiding places of His divine 
presence. Surely, such an one is very God. 

Divine Works Ascribed To The Spirit, 

His works are such as show Him to be 
divine, for they are such that no being of lim- 
ited or imperfect faculties could perform. 


20 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


He “garnished the heavens” and “moved 
upon the face of the deep” to reduce the con- 
fusion of chaos to order, and to impreg- 
nate dead matter with life and animation. 
(Gen. 1:2; Job 26:13; Psalms 33:6.) 
Surely, that power which hovered over the 
world when it was a mass of chaotic matter 
— a valley of darkness and of the shadow 
of death — and sowed the seed and impreg-, 
nated it so that it pulsated with life, must 
have been divine. 

Peter tells us that the “prophecy came 
not in old time by the will of men, but holy 
men of God spake as they were moved by 
the Holy Ghost.” (2 Peter 1:21.) In He- 
brews we are told, “That in times past God 
spake unto the fathers by the prophets.” 
(Heb. 1:1.) That which Peter calls the 
Holy Ghost, the writer of the Hebrews calls 
God. The prophets were messengers of 
God, but the revealing power by which they 
were enabled to carry out their mission was 
the Holy Spirit. When Moses penned the 
Penteteuch the Holy Ghost moved his hand ; 
when David wrote the Psalms, and made 


21 


rOWER FOR SERVICE 


melodious music on his harp, it was the 
Holy Spirit who gave his fingers their 
seraphic motion; when Solomon spoke the 
proverbs of wisdom, or when he hymned the 
Canticle of love, it was the Holy Spirit 
who gave him words of knowledge and 
hymns of rapture. Ah! what fire was it 
that touched the lips of the eloquent 
Isaiah? What hand came upon Daniel? 
What might made Jeremiah so plain- 
tive in his grief? Who kindled the imagin- 
ation of Ezekiel so that he could soar aloft 
and see the Mighty Unknown beyond our 
reach? Who was it that made Amos, the 
herdsman, a prophet? Who taught the 
rugged Haggai to pronounce his thunder- 
ing sentences? Who pointed out to Habak- 
kuk the horses of J ehovah marching through 
the deep? Who kindled the burning elo- 
quence of Nahum? Who caused Malachi 
to close up the book with the muttering of 
the word of curse? Ah! It was the Holy 
Ghost. Surely, he can be no less than di- 
vine. 

We are assured that at the last day our 


THE DIVINE TARACLETE 


scattered dust shall be collected and revived 
by him: “He that raised up Christ from 
the dead, shall also quicken your mortal 
bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” 
(Rom. 8:11.) Such work can only be the 
work of God. As Hodge says: “The work 
of the Spirit is the work of God. He fash- 
ions the world. He regenerates the soul. 
He is the source of all knowledge, the giver 
of inspiration. He fashions our bodies. He 
formed the body of Christ as a fit habita- 
tion for the fullness of the Godhead. He 
is to quicken our mortal bodies. Surely, a 
person of so much dignity as this is no less 
than divine.” 

The Honors Bestowed Show Him Divine. 

The supreme honors bestowed upon the 
Spirit show Him to be divine. His place 
in the divine economy is unique. 

Christ, in giving the command to His dis- 
ciples, said: “Go ye into all the world 
and disciple the nations, baptizing them 
in the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19.) 


23 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Paul tells us that there are diversities of 
gifts, but the same Spirit ; differences of ad- 
ministrations, but the same Lord; and di- 
versities of operations, but the same God 
who worketh all in all. (1 Cor. 12:4-6.) 
Meyer, in commenting on this passage, 
says : “The divine Trinity is here indicated 
in an ascending climax, in such a way that 
we pass from the Spirit who bestows the 
gifts to the Lord who is served by means of 
them, and finally to God, who, as the abso- 
lute First Cause and possessor of all Chris- 
tian power, works the entire sum of all 
Cliristmatic gifts in all who are gifted.” 
In the apostolic benediction the Spirit is 
also associated with the Father and the 
Son. (2 Cor. 13:14.) Surely, that person 
associated with the Father and the Son in 
the baptismal formula, in connection with 
the bestowal of all Christmatic gifts, and 
in the apostolic benediction, must be of the 
same divine essence with the Father and 
the Son. Such an one must be divine. 

We are taught throughout all the Scrip- 
tures to seek for his influence by fervent 


24 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


prayer, to depend upon him for the mortifi- 
cation of sin and for growth in holiness, 
and to yield ourselves to His dictates with 
unfeigned submission. (Luke 11:13; Kom. 
8 :13-14 ; Gal. 5 :25. ) There is an injunction 
to every trusting soul to grieve him not 
(Eph. 4:30), and admonition not to quench 
the light and fire which this gracious visi- 
tant brings. (1 Thess. 5:19.) He is our 
leader and with him we are to walk. In bap- 
tism we are reminded of his equality with 
the Father and the Son, and are dedicated 
to his service. Our bodies are his temple, 
and the description implies, not only that 
he dwells in us, but that he claims us as 
his property, and that in us as in his temple 
He will be revered and worshipped. (1 Cor. 
3 :16-17, 6 :19-20. ) Are these, then, we ask, 
the claims of a creature? Do we not under- 
stand that the Holy Spirit is to be believed 
in just as the Father and the Son are be- 
lieved in ; that He must be received by faith 
as they are received by faith ; and that with- 
out this faith in the Holy Spirit we have an 
incomplete Deity? Surely, a character who 


25 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


is to receive our heart's devotion, a thing 
which we acknowledge as a right only of 
the supreme and Almighty God, can be no 
other than Divine. 

It has been shown that the most exalted 
titles, attributes, works and honors, such as 
belong by right to God only, are ascribed to 
the Holy Spirit. Therefore, if we deny the 
Godhead of the Holy Spirit, we are reduced 
to the glaring absurdity of saying that the 
highest titles, the supremest attributes, the 
most exalted works, and the most sacred 
honors of the Deity Himself are in the 
Scriptures, most explicitly and repeatedly, 
ascribed to a mere abstract principle. Sure- 
ly, to deify an influence, or anything else 
besides the great and eternal God, is idola- 
try. Thus we must conclude that the Holy 
Spirit is God ; that the Father, the Son, the 
Holy Spirit — these three persons — are of 
the same divine essence. 

It is here that the mind of man is lost 
in mystery. A trinity of persons in the 
unity of the Godhead is something of which 
we can form no definite idea. The fact is 


26 


THE DIVINE PARACLETE 


revealed to us in Scripture, but as to the 
manner of that fact, while reason lies 
humbled in the dust, shorn of her vaunted 
strength, we can never know definitely. 
But where reason cannot tread, faith, in its 
upward flight, can comprehend. And so 
with our faith fixed in the deep of His 
eternal love we can take from His Word 
what we cannot comprehend through hu- 
man reason. Only let me know Thee, Lord, 
in the pardon of sin through the Son of 
Thy love, and the enlightening and comfort- 
ing influences of the Holy Spirit, and my 
poor soul shall be sanctified. I look to Thee, 
the great Three in One. I believe in the 
Father who loves, in the Son who saves, 
and in the Holy Spirit, who calls and sanc- 
tifies. 


III. 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER. 

The redemptive economy includes the 
work of the Trinity. If we would under- 
stand the divine process of salvation, in all 
of its fullness, we must study it in the light 
of the three-fold personality of God and the 
specific work which each person performs. 
We cannot overlook the mutual relation of 
these divine persons. The work of each 
blends into the work of the others, and the 
work of the three is woven into a divine and 
perfect whole. 

Christ, in His last instruction to His dis- 
ciples, says: “I will pray the Father and 
He will give you another Comforter; even 
the Spirit of Truth; whom the world can- 
not receive, because it seeth Him not, 
neither knoweth Him; but ye know Him, 
for He dwelleth with you and shall be in 


28 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


you.” (John 14:16-17.) The three persons 
of the Trinity are here related in the work 
of salvation. “ I will pray,” says the Son; 
“I will send,” says the Father; “I will 
comfort,” says the Holy Spirit. This three- 
fold personality secures a life-movement. It 
is through the activities of the three per- 
sons that God evermore objectifies Himself 
and gives forth of His fullness. The Son is 
the centrifugal force of Deity, but there 
must also be a centripetal force. This the 
Holy Spirit supplies. In the Son, God 
evermore goes out from Himself in saving 
power. In the Holy Spirit, God evermore 
comes back to Hiinself with the results of 
His saving activity. And so the circle of 
action is established by which God reaches 
men and lifts them up to Himself. 

From the human standpoint, however, 
the work of Christ stands out above the rest. 
The center of the whole Christian system 
is the Man of Galilee. He is the vital 
force, the regnant life in the scheme of 
human redemption. He it was who ful- 
filled the divine conditions in the economy 


29 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


of grace ; who paid the penalty of a violated 
and enraged law; satisfied the demands of 
offended justice; bridged the chasm which 
sin had digged between God and man; and 
opened a sure and safe ‘way whereby God 
could be just and at the same time justify 
the ungodly. In all this work of Christ 
there is a peculiar relation which the Holy 
Spirit bears to him which we must take into 
account if we would fully understand the 
redemptive economy. 

The Personal Relation. 

The Holy Spirit and Christ are person- 
ally related in the great work of salvation. 

1. The earthly life of Christ, with all 
that life means to man, was made pos- 
sible by the Holy Spirit through w^hose 
agency Christ was born into the life of 
humanity. 

The angel that appeared unto Mary 
said: “The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
you and the power of the Most High shall 
overshadow you; wherefore also that whicli 
is to be born shall be called holy, the Son 
of God.” (Luke 1:35.) This is the first in- 


30 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


di cation of the personal relation of the 
Spirit and Christ in the redemptive proc- 
ess. We have here the proclamation of 
the incarnation of the Son of God. The 
Divine One is to come into the thought and 
life of the world. This divine conception, 
by which Christ is to be born of a woman, 
is not after the manner of nature, but it 
is to be produced by the singular, power- 
ful, invisible and immediate operation of 
the Holy Spirit. The strange declaration 
is that, “The power of the Most High shall 
overshadow thee.” This reminds us of the 
first chapter of Genesis : There we are told 
that the “Spirit of God brooded upon the 
face of the deep.” Then it was the brood- 
ing Spirit calling the physical world out of 
chaos into cosmos. Now it is the same 
Spirit, but this time He is calling into the 
moral midnight of the world the mighty 
Son of God who will lead the spiritual chaos 
of this sin-sick and suffering world into the 
cosmos of divine light and life and love. 

In this miracle of divine grace two things 
are accomplished which bear directly upon 
the redemption of the world. 


31 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


(1) The divine and the human, God 
and man, are brought together in one com- 
plete and perfect union. 

We have Mary, the mother of our Lord, 
the representative of the human; we have 
the Holy Spirit, the overshadowing power, 
the representative of Divinity. The two 
came together in that miraculous concep- 
tion, and the result was the supernatural 
product — the God-Man — born of Mary. 

This is the only hope of human redemp- 
tion. Through this Child God has a way of 
access to the race. He who was infinitely 
removed from us, whose person we could 
not comprehend and whose language we 
could not know, becomes infinitely closely 
drawn — bone of our bone, flesh of our flesh, 
life of our life. I grant you that God could 
have revealed Himself in some other way. 
He could have penciled His will in the grow- 
ing leaves of the forest, or have chiseled it 
on the rocks of the mountains with the thun- 
der bolt, or furrowed it in the foam of the 
angry billows of the sea with the tornado’s 
teeth, or written it in letters of living light 


32 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


upon the heavens above. But what would 
it have profited? A Gospel for humanity 
must come through humanity. To regen- 
erate means to revitalize, and to revitalize 
God must come in contact with the dead, 
inactive particles and give them life again. 
And though God had written his will upon 
all creation and had sent a myriad of angels 
to stand upon the ten thousand eminences 
of the world and point with flaming finger 
to the revealed will of God, it would profit 
nothing unless a spark of divine fire had 
fallen from the eternal throne to start a 
conflagration in the breast of man. What 
humanity needed was life and not law. No 
mere rules of living or codified laws can 
give life. And so the Logos became incar- 
nate that he might give life. 

(2) There is also a new generation be- 
gun. 

“Wherefore as by one man sin entered 
into the world and death by sin; and so 
death passed upon all men for that all 
sinned.” (Rom. 5:12.) “For as by one man’s 
disobedience many were made sinners, so by 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


the obedience of one shall many be made 
righteous.” (Rom. 5:19.) “If any man be 
in Christ Jesus he is a new creature; old 
tilings are passed away, and behold all 
things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17.) In 
these passages it is distinctly implied that 
in the completed annals of divine history 
there will be the story of two families. 
Adam will be the father and federal head 
of the one, and Christ the father and federal 
head of the other. The history of the one 
will be the story of sin with its wreck and 
ruin; the history of the other will be the 
story of redemption with its cross and its 
crown. “Now w T e are the sons of God, and 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be; 
but we know that, when He shall appear 
we shall be like Him ; for we shall see Him 
as He is.” (1 John, 3:2.) We are heirs 
of God and joint heirs with the Lord Jesus 
Christ. This is the birth privilege to those 
who are begotten of God in Christ. Through 
the operation of God’s grace in the system 
of redemption that which sin would have 
ruined is lifted up, through faith, to the 


34 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


proud position of Sonship in the Kingdom 
of God. 

2. The Holy Spirit comes upon Christ 
preparing Him for His life-work. 

There are three passages in Isaiah which 
refer to this enduement of the Spirit. (Isa. 
11:1-9; 42:1-4; 61:1-3.) I quote the last 
passage: “The Spirit of the Lord God is 
upon me; because the Lord hath anointed 
me to preach good tidings to the meek; He 
hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, 
to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the 
opening of the prison to them that are 
bound. ” 

In this passage the promise is made that 
the Spirit shall rest upon Christ to equip 
Him for His work. Turn to Luke (3:21-22) 
and you will find the record of the fulfill- 
ment. of this promise : “Now when all the 
people were baptized it came to pass that 
Jesus, also being baptized, and praying, the 
heavens were opened, and the Holy Ghost 
descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon 
him, and a voice came from heaven, which 
said, Thou art my beloved Son: in Thee I 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


am well pleased.” At the beginning of his 
public ministry Jesus read this passage 
from Isaiah and declared that in Himself 
it found fulfillment. (Luke 4 :16-31.) The 
Spirit without measure was given to Christ 
that He might accomplish the work of hu- 
man redemption. (See John 3:34; Matt. 
4:1; Acts 10:38; Matt. 12:28; Heb. 9 :14.) 

You will notice that the anointing with 
the Spirit is an experience which comes to 
Him at His baptism. It is here that He 
openly allies Himself with the purposes of 
God. Coming up out of the baptismal 
waters He prayed. It is as if He had said : 
“Oh, Father, Thou hast promised me the 
anointing of the Spirit for my life work. 
I come now to claim that promise.” Then 
were the heavens opened and the Spirit des- 
cended upon Him. From that moment He 
is so completely directed by the Spirit that 
He knew and taught and performed only 
what the Spirit permitted and directed. 

The Official Relation. 

The Spirit is not only personally related 


36 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


to Christ, He is also officially related. It 
takes the official work of the two to make 
possible the salvation of the race. 

1. Their relation to the Father. 

Both the Spirit and Christ in their of- 
ficial work bear a relation to the Father. 
It takes the two to complete the circle of 
Deity. Christ is the medium of external 
revelation, the Holy Spirit the organ of 
internal revelation. Through Christ God 
the Father evermore objectifies Himself, 
through the Holy Spirit God the Father 
evermore subjectifies Himself. 

They are also interrelated in their mis- 
sion of mercy to man. The Son and the 
Holy Spirit both came into the world ; both 
are sent by the Father, and yet their com- 
ing is conditioned upon the mutual activi- 
ties of each other. Notice this interrela- 
tion. 

(1) The Son is sent into the world by 
the Father ( Jno. 3 :1G), and yet the coming 
of the Son is conditioned upon the work of 
the Holy Spirit. (Luke 1:35.) 

(2) The Holy Spirit comes as a gift of 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


the Father (Jno. 14:26), but is sent only 
through the Son who must first be exalted 
by the right hand of God. (Jno. 7 :39; Acts 
2:33.) 

In the two-fold work — the work of the 
Spirit and the Son — the divine activity is 
completed. God, the unknown and unknow- 
able one, becomes known through Christ, 
the medium of external revelation ; becomes 
a part of the experience of the inner life of 
the individual through the Holy Spirit, the 
organ of internal revelation. Through Christ 
a way to God is opened; through the Holy 
Spirit fallen creatures are enabled to avail 
themselves of that way and do actually re- 
turn to God. 

2. The ministry of the Spirit in its rela- 
tion to the ministry of Christ. 

Perhaps the best way to get at the rela- 
tion subsisting between the ministry of 
the Spirit and the ministry of Christ is to 
put them in contrast. When we do this we 
find that they are complementary of one an- 
other in the work of human redemption. 

(1) The place of their ministry. 


38 


CHRIST AND THE COMFORTER 


Jesus is in heaven (Acts 1:11; Heb. 7 :23- 
25) ; the Holy Spirit is in the earth (Jno. 
16:7). Christ is at the right hand of the 
Father ( Heb. 10 :12 ) ; the Holy Spirit is 
with the believer and in the believer (Jno. 
14:16-18). This two-fold ministry gives the 
earth and heaven inter-spiritual relations. 
Christ will remain in heaven until the Spirit 
has gathered out a people from the nations 
of earth for His name’s sake, then He will 
come to take unto Himself His own; the 
Holy Spirit will remain in the earth apply- 
ing the truths of the Gospel and calling 
into the kingdom of light such as should 
be saved, until the divine times are full; 
then He will take the redeemed and meet 
Christ in the air as He comes. (1 Thess. 
4:13-18.) 

(2) The nature of their ministry. 

Jesus is the advocate with the Father 
(1 Jno. 2:1-2) ; the Holy Spirit is the advo- 
cate with the believer (Jno. 14:26; Jno. 
16:13). Through Christ, the High Priest 
of our salvation, God is reconciled to man 
( Heb. 9 :7-24) ; through the Holy Spirit this 


39 


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mediatorial work of Christ is applied to 
the heart of the individual (Jno. 16:13; 
Eph. 3 :16; Acts 1 :8). 

From this comparison we see that the 
work of the one is in heaven; the work of 
the other on earth. The work of the one is 
with God the Father; the work of the other 
with man, the sinner. By the work of the 
one the wrath of God is appeased so that 
He becomes reconciled to man ; by the work 
of the other the wrath of man is appeased 
so that he becomes reconciled to God. The 
one advocates the cause of God to man. The 
other advocates the cause of man to God. 
By the work of the two combined, the re- 
demption wrought out by Christ finds com- 
plete advocacy. 



40 


IV. 


I 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT. 

The Bible is a book of symbols. It 
abounds in metaphors, similes and word- 
pictures. Where in all literature can you 
find the imagery of Isaiah surpassed? 
Where will you find in the poetic produc- 
tions of all the nations a passage that will 
rival the beauty and splendor of Ezekiel’s 
vision? Is there anything in all the pro- 
ductions of human imagination that will 
compare with the Revelation of John? 

As I wander through the lanes and parks 
of the imperial domain of literary style I 
find that all the great American, English, 
C erman, Spanish, French and Italian poets, 
orators and rhetoricians have gathered in- 
spiration for their most sublime passages 
from the rich fields of Bible imagery. Mil- 
ton’s “Paradise Lost” is the Bible story in 


41 


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blank verse. Tasso’s “ Jerusalem Deliv- 
ered” is borrowed from the Book divine. 
Spencer’s writings are imitations of the 
parables. John Bunyan saw in a dream 
only what St. John had before seen in 
Apocalyptic vision. Byron caught the rug- 
gedness and majesty of his style from the 
prophecies. Pope is saturated with Isaiah. 
Thompson and Johnson are largely influ- 
enced by the inspired Orientals. 

The symbols of the Bible are not used, 
however, simply for rhetorical finish. They 
have a meaning. God is speaking to us 
through them, and if we would understand 
His message we must know the meaning of 
the symbols which He uses. The revelation 
of God becomes real to us just in the pro- 
portion that we understand the figures used 
to represent the Spirit. 

The Dove A Symbol Of The Spirit. 

The first symbol used to represent the 
Spirit is the dove. This is first both in the 
Old Testament and in the New. At the bap- 
tism of Jesus the Spirit descended upon 


42 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 


Him in the form of a dove. In the story 
of creation we are told that the earth was 
without form and void, and that the Spirit 
of God brooded upon the face of the deep. 
This is the figure of the mother dove brood- 
ing over her nest and cherishing her young. 
What a strange background for such a pict- 
ure: chaos, desolation, the seething waters, 
the hissing flames, the wild abyss, the star- 
less night, the reign of ruin, of desolation 
and of death ! That was the condition of the 
physical world over which the Spirit of 
God, like a mother dove, brooded and rested 
not until out of that wreck and ruin there 
evolved a bright and happy world. 

At the beginning of the new dispensation 
we find the Spirit of God again active. This 
time He is not brooding over a chaotic 
world of matter, but He is descending from 
the heavens to endue with power the 
mighty Son of God as Savior of the world. 
His work is now the redemption of a world 
which is in moral ruin. Through Christ 
He comes as the mother-spirit of God into 
the world. In the old dispensation He is 


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seen brooding over a chaotic world to re- 
store it to order ; in the new dispensation He 
is seen brooding over the darkness of a 
sinful world — over the void of the sinful 
lives of men — warming and mellowing the 
heart with the kindness of God which 
leadeth to repentance. 

Wind , a Symbol of the Spirit. 

Wind, breath, air — this is the literal mean- 
ing of the words Rauch ( Heb. ) and Pneuma 
(Gr.) translated Spirit. These are used as 
symbols of the Holy Spirit. 

In speaking of the first creation, the di- 
vine writer tells us that the Lord God 
formed man out of the dust of the ground 
and breathed into his nostrils the breath 
of life, and man became a living soul. (Gen. 
2:7.) In speaking of the new creation 
Christ says: “Except a man be born again 
he cannot see the kingdom of heaven. * * * 
The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou 
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh or whither it goeth ; so is 
everyone born of the Spirit.” (Jno. 3:3-8.) 


41 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 


And just before he ascended to the Father 
he breathed on His disciples and said unto 
them, “Receive ye the Holy Spirit.” (Jno. 
20 : 22 .) 

The passage in Genesis contains the 
second reference to the Spirit of God and 
the passages from the New Testament pro- 
long the line and fix the application of the 
beautiful picture to the person and work of 
the Holy Spirit. The figure under which 
the Spirit is here represented is that of 
breath, air. He is represented as the atmos- 
phere in which we live. The act by which 
we inhale the vital properties of the atmos- 
phere is taken as a representation of the 
Spirit’s work in the soul. This symbol de- 
notes life and activity. It brings us face 
to face with tw T o important stages in Chris- 
tian experience. 

1. The beginning of being. 

Christianity is a new life. It begins with 
a new birth. We must be born of the Spirit 
before we can see the kingdom of heaven. 
As God in the beginning breathed into 
man’s nostrils and man became a living 


45 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


soul, so must the Holy Spirit breathe a new 
life into the soul dead in tresspasses and in 
sin that it may become a new creation in 
Christ Jesus. This is what Christ calls the 
new birth. It is illustrated typically in 
Gen. 2 : 7 ; is set forth prophetically in Eze- 
kiel 37 : 5-10; presented doctrinally in John 
3 : 3-18 ; and proven experimentally in Titus 
3: 5. The Christian Life is God-breathed. 

2. The vitalization of the regenerated 
soul for life and service. 

Breathe in the vitalizing power. We can 
live for days without food, and for a life- 
time without sight or hearing, but we can- 
not live an hour without breath. The new- 
born soul must breathe, and if it is to 
breathe it must be immersed in its element. 
If the atmosphere laden with oxygen and 
ozone is to live in us we must live in it. If the 
power of the Spirit is to be manifest in the 
Christian then the Christian must live in 
the Spirit, The soul must be overwhelmed 
with the Spirit so that it can breathe Him 
in and breathe Him out. As the bird in 
the air and the fish in the sea are at home, 


46 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 


so the soul when it is in the Spirit is at 
home. Outside of the Spirit it must for- 
ever suffer lack of divine sufficiency. 

Water , a Symbol of the Spirit. 

Water is also used as a symbol of the 
Spirit. Two out of the many passages will 
suffice to show the meaning of this symbol. 
“I will pour water upon him that is thirsty 
and floods upon the dry ground ; I will pour 
my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessings 
upon thine off spring.” (Isa. 14: 3.) “If 
any man thirst, let him come unto me and 
drink. He that believeth on me, as the 
Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall 
flow rivers of living water. But this spake 
He of the Spirit which they that believe on 
Him should receive.” (John 7: 37-39). 
Here the idea is refreshment, cleansing, sat- 
isfaction, fullness. What a cup of water is 
to thirsty lips and a drenching rain to 
parched soil, that and much more the Spirit 
is to the longing soul to cleanse, refresh and 
satisfy. 

In 1 Cor. 10: 4, Paul gives a beautiful 


47 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


picture of the Spirit’s abiding presence with 
the people of God. He tells us that the 
children of Israel “did all drink of the 
spiritual rock that followed them; and that 
rock was Christ.” The water of that rock, 
smitten in Horeb, was the type of the out- 
pouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of 
Pentecost. If we would know the full mean- 
ing of the figure we must understand the 
interpretation of the strange expression, 
“they drank of that rock that followed 
them.” How did the rock follow them? It 
did not travel after them through the des- 
ert ; but the water of the rock followed them. 
That water, first opened at Horeb, ran under 
the desert sand, a subterranean stream. 
They could not see it on the surface, but it 
was there all the time, and all they had to 
do was to dig down with their staves and 
sing the song of faith and lo! the water 
came. What a beautiful picture of the abid- 
ing life in the Spirit ! In the believer there 
are wells of living water springing up unto 
eternal life. The blessed promises of life 
and salvation follow us through all our 


48 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 


wilderness journey. We may not always 
be able to see the water or to trace the chan- 
nel of the river, but it is there beneath our 
feet, and all we have to do is to dig down 
with the stave of promise and sing the song 
of faith and the Holy Spirit will be found 
springing up with His infinite supply for 
all our needs. 

Fire , a Symbol of the Spirit. 

If you will read the sixty-third chapter of 
Isaiah you will find that the prophet ex- 
pressly recognizes the Holy Spirit as the 
Presence who dwelt in the midst of Israel, 
and led them through the Eed Sea and the 
wilderness. The thing that symbolized His 
presence was the pillar of cloud by day and 
of fire by night. This is not the only time 
God has manifested his presence by the sym- 
bol of fire. He showed himself to Moses in 
the burning bush; to Elijah and apostate 
Israel in the “fire of the Lord” on Mount 
Carmel ; to the waiting disciples by “cloven 
tongues of fire” in the upper room. This 
symbol stands for the presence and power 


19 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


of God. It represents the illuminating and 
purifying work of the Spirit of God among 
Ilis people. God is to give light, God is 
to purify, God is to guide. The pillar of 
cloud and of fire did not represent an angel’s 
guidance, it was the sign of God’s own pres- 
ence. And so the tongues of fire sitting on 
the heads of the believing ones on the morn- 
ing of Pentecost indicates the presence of 
God in their midst. The Holy Spirit had 
come. The Church of God has a super- 
natural leader. The Christian has a guide 
divine. Our holy religion is not a collection 
of wise human opinions ; it is not simply an 
organization combining the strongest forces 
of human wisdom and power; it is nothing 
if it is not divine. The Church of God is a 
living miracle. God is with us in all His 
life-giving, purifying power, or else we are 
impostors. Let us send up to Him this peti- 
tion: “Awake, oh arm of the Lord, as in 
the days of old!” And then let us hear in 
answer His summons to us : “Awake, 
awake, put on thy strength, oh Zion, thy 
beautiful garment, oh Jerusalem.” 


50 


THE SYMBOLS OF THE SPIRIT 


Oil a Symbol of the Spirit. 

Anointing with oil was one of the most 
common and significant ceremonies of the 
Old Testament. The tabernacle was anoint- 
ed, the priests were anointed, the prophets 
were anointed, the kings were anointed, the 
guests were anointed and the sick were 
anointed. That it is a symbol of the Spirit 
is evident from the Scripture. “Samuel took 
the horn of oil and anointed him in the 
midst of his brethren ; and the Spirit of the 
Lord came upon David from that day for- 
ward.” ( 1 Sam. 16 : 13 ) . “And the anoint- 
ing which ye received from Him abides in 
you, and ye have no need that any one teach 
you ; but as His anointing teacheth you con- 
cerning all things, and is truth, and is no 
lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in 
Him.” (1 Jno. 2: 27). The anointing re- 
ferred to is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 
This symbol stands for the consecrating 
and healing work of the Spirit. Anointing 
with oil in any of the Old Testament rites 
indicated the setting apart of the thing an- 


51 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


ointed to a sacred service. This is a splen- 
did type of tlie Holy Spirit’s work on the 
soui. The person who receives the Spirit 
is set apart for the service of God. The 
Spirit comes upon the believer as an an- 
ointing, empowering the soul and equip- 
ping it for life and for service. 

These are the symbols by which the Spirit 
is represented. Each stands for a definite 
relation which He bears to the world and to 
man. Under these types we have His work 
unfolded. Under these figures we behold 
Him in the different stages of His work 
applying the redemption of Christ to the 
soul. Put yourself under His divine influ- 
ence and pass through each stage in His 
progressive work until you have received 
the fullness of His matchless gifts — the 
anointing for life and for service. 


V. 


THE PLACE OF PENTECOST IN THE 
PLAN OF REDEMPTION. 

The redemptive economy of God is divided 
into dispensations. God works in cycles. 
Each cycle marks a stage in the revealed 
form of heaven’s administration. In the 
completed economy of God there are three 
dispensations. One of these has passed, we 
are now in the second, and the third is yet 
to follow. The one passed is the dispensa- 
tion of the Father, the one we are now in 
is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit, and 
the one yet to come is the dispensation of 
the Son. These three dispensations mark 
ever advancing stages in the redemption of 
man. In the dispensation of the Father we 
have a divine movement towards the re- 
demptive work of Christ; in the dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit we have an advance 


53 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


in the divine economy and a distinct move- 
ment towards the second coming of Christ; 
and in the dispensation of the Son we have 
the last step in the culmination of God’s 
divine plan in the redemption of the world. 
When Christ shall have redeemed the earth 
and saved it from the curse of sin, then he 
will turn it over to the Father a ransomed 
world. This is the final consummation to 
which the redemptive economy of God looks. 
We are now in the period of the Holy 
Spirit’s work in the accomplishment of this 
divine purpose. 

Pentecost is the beginning of the Spirit’s 
dispensation; the second coming of Christ 
will be the end of His dispensation. I do 
not mean that the Spirit was not in the 
world before Pentecost; long before that 
event God’s Spirit brooded over the deep 
and called out of chaos, cosmos. In the 
pages of sacred story His power and pres- 
ence is recognized. But this is the period 
of His special, His dispensational, work. 
Christ was in the world before his birth at 
Bethlehem, but that birth was His incarna- 


54 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


tion into the body of humanity; so was the 
Holy Spirit in the world before Pentecost, 
but it was on that day that He was born 
into the life of the church which is the body 
of Christ. 

In the study of this question let us bear 
in mind that human history is God’s story. 
The true student of history sees in the rise 
and fall of empires the mighty movements 
of God in providence. Down beneath the cur- 
rent of human events runs the purpose of 
God. He, in great grace, is moving with 
precision and perfect power to a consumma- 
tion that will satisfy the heart of His love. 
Nor must we, in the larger events which go 
to make up the history of the world, overlook 
the manifestations which God has made of 
himself to man from time to time. Sinai 
has a distinct place in history. Bethlehem 
has changed the thought of the world. Cal- 
vary is the crucifixion spot of all the world’s 
sin, passion and pride. Nor must we leave 
out Pentecost. No day is of more vital 
moment in the formation of human history 
and the determination of human destiny 


55 


FOWER FOR SERVICE 


than that day which marks the advent of the 
Spirit into the world. 

A Fact Declared . 

The Spirit given on that day is a sign and 
seal setting forth the fact that God had ac- 
cepted the redemptive work of Christ and 
that man’s salvation was sure. 

Ten days before this event Jesus had as- 
cended into the heavens. Before He left He 
said unto his disciples : “Tarry ye in Jerusa- 
lem until ye be endued with power from on 
high, and ye shall receive power the Holy 
Spirit coming upon you.” (Acts 1 :8.) When 
the promise was fulfilled Peter, in explana- 
tion, says : “This same Jesus God raised up. 
Being therefore exalted by the right hand 
of God, and having received from the Father 
the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has 
poured forth this which you both see and 
hear.” (Acts 2: 32-33). Two things are 
declared : 

1. It is declared that Christ has ascended 
unto the Father and there in the august 


56 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


presence of the Supreme Ruler of the Uni- 
verse completed the atonement. 

There are some who think that the work 
of Jesus was finished and the redemption 
of man complete when Christ died on the 
cross. But not so. The atoning sacrifice 
was then complete, hut the atonement was 
not complete. On the day of atonement, 
which is the type of the atonement of Christ, 
after the priest had killed the victim by the 
side of the altar, he then took the blood and 
went into the holy of holies and sprinkled 
it seven times between the ark of the cove- 
nant and the veil (Lev. 16:8-14). The slay- 
ing of the victim beside the altar of burnt 
offering was not enough. The blood must 
be sprinkled before the ark of the covenant 
in the holy of the holies before the atone- 
ment was complete. So in the divine ante- 
tvpe, the dying of the victim on the cross 
is not enough to complete the atonement, 
the blood must be sprinkled in the holy of 
holies. On the cross the sacrifice for sin 
was made; in the heavens before the throne 
of God the atonement for man was finished. 


57 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


On the cross Christ hung as a sacrifice for 
the sin of the world; before the throne he 
presents his own blood to the Father as the 
purchase price for the redemption of man. 
The Holy Spirit is the messenger from 
heaven publishing to the world this fact. 

2. The second fact declared is the ac- 
ceptance of the redemptive work of Christ 
by the Father and the giving of the Holy 
Spirit to the Son as the sign and seal of 
that acceptance. 

In the study of the sacrifices you will find 
that the priest wore bells when he went into 
the holy of holies. He did this so that the 
people could hear the ringing of the bells 
when he went in behind the veil and know 
that God had not struck him down dead, 
but was accepting the offering for sin. From 
the top of Mount Olivet, Jesus passed into 
the holy of holies. If that were all we could 
never know, until He comes again, that God 
had accepted the atonement. But Christ 
does not make us wait. He sent the Holy 
Spirit to that little waiting group on Pente- 
cost, and to all His children through all 
the ages, to tell them that all is well. 


58 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


Last summer one of my members went 
East. On Sunday morning as we came into 
the church his brother said to me: “Well, 
Charlie has reached New York all right.” 

I said: “How do you know?” 

He replied: “We got a telegram from 
him last night.” 

Well might the apostles have said to any 
one who might not have been in that upper 
chamber: “Our Master has been received 
in heaven by the Father and our redemption 
is sure.” And if that one had said: “How 
do you know?” They could have answered: 
“We received the Spirit in the fulfillment of 
His promise this morning.” That is what 
they say to us: “Being by the right hand 
of God exalted He hath poured forth this 
which you both see and hear.” The Holy 
Spirit given on the day of Pentecost is the 
pledge to us of the divine acceptance of 
Christ and His redemptive work. It is the 
pledge to the world that He is able to save 
to the uttermost all them that come unto 
God through Him, seeing that he ever liveth 
to intercede for them. 


59 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


A Process Insured. 

The operation of the Holy Spirit repre- 
sents also a stage in the redemptive process 
which lies beyond the immediate personal 
work of Christ. The Spirit continues the 
operation of God’s saving grace in the 
world. He is to make real to the world 
what Christ has made real for the world. 
He is to carry on to its conclusion the re- 
demptive work of Christ. In this process 
there is two-fold development. 

1. The -work of enlightening the disci- 
ples. 

Christ’s personal presence with them was 
no longer possible, but His teaching must 
be continued and completed. It is through 
the application of His redemptive work that 
the world is to be saved. But before the 
world can be saved His wrought out re- 
demption must be applied. The disciples 
are commissioned to publish this purchased 
salvation. For this work they need special 
preparation. Christ had told them that He 
had many things to say unto them, but that 


60 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 

they were not ready to receive them. He 
promised, however, that when the Comfort- 
er came he would teach them all things, 
and bring to their remembrance all the 
things which He had said unto them. In 
this enlargement the Spirit does two things. 

(1) He was to bring to their remem- 
brance all the things Christ had said unto 
them. 

The Spirit was to connect Himself with 
the work of Christ so as to not only impress 
the teachings of Jesus, but also to revive 
the memory of forgotten words. What the 
world needed, and what it needs to-day, is 
not the speculations of the disciples about 
the life and teachings of Jesus, but the 
words of the Master. This is what we get 
through the work of the Spirit, I have often 
wondered how it was that the apostles 
could write whole discourses, each writ- 
ing from his own view-point and without 
the knowledge of what the others had writ- 
ten, and yet all of them tell the same story. 
In the light of the Spirit’s work it is easy. 
The Spirit brings up the words of Jesus. 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


(2) The Spirit will also lead them into 
all truth. 

Christ led them to the border-land of 
truth, but there He left them. He went into 
heaven to secure their redemption. They 
are not, however, left without a guide. The 
Spirit is given to lead them into a full 
understanding of the new economy, and to 
map out the path for them in the establish- 
ment of the kingdom of the Master. Christ’s 
work is to go on in the world. The Holy 
Spirit is the agent by which the work is to 
be advanced. The work of the Holy Spirit 
is the continuation to their consummation of 
the forces and influences of divine grace 
which were revealed in visible manifestation 
in the earthly life of Christ. The Lord does 
not forgive our sins, when we come to Him, 
and then turn us loose to drift whitherso- 
ever the currents may chance to carry us. 
If He did we would be like a frail craft on 
an unknown sea, tempest tossed and adrift 
without chart or compass. No, Christ does 
not deal with those who come to Him that 
way. After He has forgiven our sins He 


62 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


sends the heavenly pilot aboard to take 
charge of our lives. That heavenly pilot 
is the Holy Spirit. Through stress and 
storm He steers the temptation tossed soul 
into the port of glory. When the Holy 
Spirit is come He will guide you into all 
truth. This is the promise of the Christ. 

2. In this two-fold work by which the 
Holy Spirit carries on to its conclusion the 
redemptive work of Christ there is also the 
preparation of the world for the work which 
the disciples have been commissioned to do. 

“And when He is come He will convict 
the world of sin and of righteousness and of 
judgment. Of sin because they believe not 
on me, of righteousness because I go to my 
Father and ye see me no more, of Judgment 
because the prince of this world is judged.” 
(John 16: 8-9). Here is a three-fold work 
accomplished on the world. 

(1) To convict the world of sin. 

(2) To convict the world of righteous- 
ness. 

(3) To convict the world of judgment. 

You will notice that this three-fold con- 


63 


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viction is to take place in reference to 
Christ. The work of the Spirit is so linked 
unto the work of Christ as to magnify Him 
and His redemptive work. We will treat 
this phase of the Spirit’s work in a separate 
chapter. This two-fold work — the work of 
enlightening the disciples and the work of 
convicting the world — insures the continua- 
tion in the world of the redemptive work of 
Christ. 


A Relation Established. 

The Spirit given forms the bond of union 
and life between Christ and His disciples. 
There are three results from this relation. 

1. The believer is one with Christ. 

As a result of the bond of union formed 
by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit there 
is oneness between Christ and the ones into 
whose life the Spirit comes. This is the 
miracle of Christianity. Oneness with Christ 
is the very heart of the Christian religion. 
You are a Christian not because you try to 
follow and imitate Christ, but because you 


64 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 

have Christ formed in you the hope of glory. 
If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you 
live one life with the risen Son of God. 
Christ poured Himself into that waiting 
group on the day of Pentecost and straight- 
way they lived one life with Him. The touch 
of His own life caused theirs to thrill and 
throb. He became to them the all and the 
in all. He satisfied their every desire, 
quenched their thirst for the things of the 
world, yea, He was the complement of their 
every need. 

2. There also results the oneness of the 
Christian community. 

The moment that Peter, James and John 
and the rest were filled with the Spirit, that 
moment they began to live one common life 
with one another. A kindred life and feel- 
ing dominated them and made their inter- 
ests one. It is this Spirit that to-day binds 
heart to heart, and soul to soul, in the King- 
dom of King Jesus. 

3. This new life — the indwelling Spirit 
— is destined to transform every one into 
whom He enters into the perfect likeness of 


65 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


that divine One unto whose blessed life He 
links them. 

This is the supreme work of the Spirit. 
To be like Christ is the supreme end of the 
Christian life. But remember that the ac- 
complished result is not attained in a 
moment. They are mistaken who think that 
by one act of submission and faith they can 
turn over the whole host of passions and 
emotions which lie housed within the human 
soul. The Christian life is a life of belief 
and a life of surrender. The soul is like 
the ocean. The surface of the water is well 
lit up by the rays of the sun, deeper down 
there is semi-darkness, while deep down in 
the depths it is perpetual night. So with 
the soul. On the outer surface we know 
some things well, deeper down we only half 
understand ourselves, while deep down in 
the depths of being there is a realm we know 
nothing about. This region is the sub-con- 
scious nature. From this sub-conscious 
realm there is continually struggling to the 
surface of consciousness passions, emotions, 
ambitions over which we have no control, 


66 


PLACE OF PENTECOST IN PLAN OF REDEMPTION 


until they are wrought out into the actuality 
of purpose and desire. It is the Holy 
Spirit’s work to form within us each strug- 
gling thought — ere it has become a thought 
—and turn it in the channel which leads to 
glory and to God. This work is to go on 
day by day until w T e have the same mind in 
us that was in Him. It is to go on until 
we are fashioned into His likeness. 

To be like Him, this is the craving of our 
souls. “Behold I see Him and I am like 
Him” is the shout of triumph that will greet 
His coming. Nothing beyond this, nothing 
fairer than this, no more beauteous vision 
falls across the pathway of the saints cheer- 
ing the night with song than this: “I shall 
see Him and I shall be like Him.” Is this 
your hope? Then the measure in which you 
are letting His Spirit have His way in your 
life is the measure in which you are being 
transformed into His blessed image. 


67 


VI. 


A EIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE. 

The teaching of Jesus concerning the 
ministry of the Spirit is found chiefly in 
the fourteenth and sixteenth chapters of 
John’s Gospel. In this, His farewell dis- 
course, His purpose seems to be to cheer the 
hearts of His disciples, who are filled with 
grief at the suggestion of His departure. 
They had looked for Him to establish a king- 
dom, and now when He begins to talk of His 
coming passion all the bright hopes which 
have cheered them through the three years 
of patient waiting are blighted. Their 
hearts are heavy. They stand in the penum- 
bra of the eclipse, not knowing that the sun 
of righteousness will shine only the brighter 
for having passed through the hour of dark- 
ness. 

Our Lord was conscious that His ministry 
had been a failure when viewed by the ac- 
cepted standards of human thought. “He 


68 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE. 


came to His own and His own received Him 
not.” The world has never known just what 
to do with Him. It has approached Him and 
recoiled from Him; it has owned Him, and 
discarded him, in a breath ; it has hailed him 
as King, and crucified Him among thieves^ 
He has at once been the spell and the dread 
of those who have known Him. This failure 
of His — this attitude of the world towards 
Him — was because of the sublimity of His 
character. If He had been less grand He 
would have drawn around himself a wider 
homage. A character like His was not to 
be fathomed by the public mind in three 
short years. Being just what he was — divine 
yet human — He proved the stumbling-block 
and rock of offense against which His con- 
temporaries bruised themselves by their 
obstinacy and unbelief. 

In spite of this fact, however, His char- 
acter was destined to conquer. He knew 
that the world did not understand Him, that 
the world could not receive Him; but He 
knew also that the world would finally bow 
before Him and be subjected to His rule. 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


This subjection was to come through another. 
It is of this other one that He is trying to 
tell His disciples. It is as if He had said : 
“You do not understand me. It is better 
for you that I go away, for if I go away I 
will send you the Spirit, my divine other- 
self, and when He is come He will lead you 
into all truth; He will bring the world in 
conviction before me for judgment; He will 
establish my reign and rule over the 
hearts and lives of men.” 

The Holy Spirit Promised. 

j 

Christ knew that what the disciples need- 
ed most of all just at this time was the 
divine assurance of His continued presence 
and power. It was natural for them to 
argue that, if the words and works of Jesus 
had not broken down the unbelief of the 
world, it was not likely that they could say 
or do anything that would overcome the 
world’s opposition. They felt their weak- 
ness in that hour and were troubled in 
heart. But Christ is ever ready with the 


TO 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE. 

needed strength and power with which to 
equip His servants for the work He commis- 
sions them to do, and so He assures these 
trembling disciples that He will not leave 
them comfortless. They are informed that 
together with their witness-bearing there 
will be an all-powerful witness — “The Spirit 
of Truth” — one who could find access to the 
hearts and minds to which they addressed 
themselves and carry truth home to con- 
viction. It was on this account that it was 
“expedient” that their Lord should depart 
and that His visible presence should be su- 
perseded by the Spirit. 

The Spirit promised does not, however, 
stand in the same relation to the believer 
that He does to the world. Christ tells 
His disciples that this Spirit shall be with 
them and shall be in them, and shall lead 
them into all truth; but He shall convict 
the world of sin, and of righteousness, and 
of judgment. It is distinctly stated that 
the Spirit shall be in the disciples, but that 
the world cannot receive Him ; that He will 
lead the disciples into all truth, but that 


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He will convict the world of sin. Two 
things are needed if the religion of Jesus 
is to become a world-power; His followers 
must be strengthened in their inner life so 
that they cannot be shaken loose from their 
faith in him; and the world must have a 
power brought to bear upon it that will 
force conviction. This is the assurance 
which Jesus gives. The Spirit will be to 
the disciples an inward teacher and 
strengthener of the moral powers. He will 
take the things of Christ and show them to 
the world through the disciples in such a 
way as to produce conviction. 

The Spirit Rejected. 

This Spirit which is to come as the Com- 
forter to the hearts of the disciples cannot 
be received by the world. There are antipa- 
thies between the world and truth which 
render the world strangely unsusceptible 
of Divine teaching. The Spirit is in the 
world and yet the world knows Him not, 
sees Him not, receives Him not. (John 


72 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE. 


14 :17. ) The reason for this is the condition 
of the world. There is no fact more clear- 
ly revealed in the Scriptures than that man 
is a sinner. “The carnal mind is enmity 
against God, is not subject to His law, neith- 
er indeed can be.” (Rom. 8:7.) Like a 
prodigal, man has wandered away from his 
Father’s house. Sin has darkened his mind, 
degraded his heart, depraved his will. 

The saddest thing of all is, the sinner is 
not conscious of his condition. He is blind 
to his lost estate. He has no sense of im- 
pending peril. He is like the little girl who 
was found crying on the street of a great 
city. 

“My child,” said the kind policeman who 
found her, “you are lost; come with me.” 

“No,” sobbed the little one, “I am not 
lost ; I am all right, but my mamma is lost ; 
wont you find her for me?” 

So to-day sinners are wondering where 
God is. Some of them are doubting His ex- 
istence; others questioning His love. What 
is the matter? Is God lost? No, the 
trouble is with the sinner. God is in the 


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world, He has filled it with His power and 
His glory. 

“The heavens declare the glory of God 
And the firmament showeth his handiwork; 
Day unto day uttereth speech. 

And night unto night showeth knowledge.” 

— Ps. xix, 1-4. 

Two reasons are given why the world can- 
not receive the Spirit : 

1. Because it seeth Him not. 

2. Neither knoweth Him. 

There is lack of spiritual sight and spirit- 
ual understanding. “The natural man per- 
ceiveth not the things of God, they are spir- 
itually discerned.” Except a man be born 
of the Spirit he cannot see the Kingdom of 
God. This condition of blindness has come 
to the world because of sin. How impera- 
tive, then, the work of the Spirit. It can 
be said of every believer: “You hath He 
quickened who were dead in trespasses and 
in sin.” 


The World Convicted. 

The inability of the world to receive the 
Spirit does not prevent Him from doing His 


74 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE. 

work. His power shall be exercised, and 
in spite of the world’s antipathy He will con- 
vict it of sin, and of righteousness, and of 
judgment. Sin had reigned long in the 
world; unrighteousness had prevailed until 
the moral fiber of society had become viti- 
ated; wrong thinking had continued until 
false standards of judgment had become 
established as a part of the principles of the 
civilization of the world. It was the work 
of the Spirit to turn the light of truth in 
upon the world’s darkness; to refute the 
error, discover the wrong and reverse the 
standards of false judgment. 

This conviction may or may not lead to 
conversion. There is a conviction of the 
Spirit which does lead to conversion, but in 
this particular instance we are dealing with 
world-forces and world-movements. It is 
the life of humanity as an organized society, 
and not individuals, that is to be understood 
by the term “world.” It is sin as a world- 
principle of evil, unrighteousness as a habit 
of society, and judgment as the accepted 
principles and standards of the world that 


75 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


is here dealt with. The whole moral ma- 
chinery of the universe has been thrown out 
of gear by the introduction of evil into the 
world. The Holy Spirit, as the vicegerent 
of God upon earth, will so turn the light of 
truth upon the moral problems of the day 
as to convict the world that it is out of cor- 
respondence with moral environments. 

This conviction is three-fold : It is, first, 
concerning sin, in relation to Christ who 
was crucified; secondly, concerning right- 
eousness, in relation to Christ who was glo- 
rified; thirdly, concerning judgment, in re- 
lation to Christ who shall come again and 
judge the world. This three-fold convic- 
tion covers the whole range of human 
thought and human activity. It starts with 
sin, the inner evil, and proceeds along the 
line of human thought and conduct until it 
reaches the principles of judgment, which 
have become fixed in the minds of men, and 
reverses them all, showing by their relation 
to the character of the Christ that the age- 
long principles of the world are contrary 
to truth. Nothing could be more sweeping 


76 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 


than this promise of the Christ. Humanity, 
with its false standards of judgment, and its 
self-complacency, is to be convicted of be- 
ing in the wrong; all kings, princes, poten- 
tates, priests and publicans, who are out of 
harmony with God, will be convicted of that 
fact by the Paraclete. 

1. He will convict the world of sin. 

This conviction wrought by the Spirit 
goes down deeper than the mere surface of 
human wrong-doing. To convict the world 
of sin is vastly more than to convict the 
world of crime. I do not know that it takes 
the Spirit to convict a man of crime. When 
God made man he placed within him the 
power of moral discernment, and this power 
was not entirely lost by the fall. We call 
that power conscience. Conscience bears 
witness to the main features of right and 
wrong and convicts of crime. This has been 
its office through all the ages. Crime is 
condemned by the common consent of so- 
ciety. Men organize themselves into states 
and nations and pass laws to protect them- 
selves against crime, and yet every member 


77 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


of the State is guilty of sin. Crime and sin 
are not synonymous. The murderer is a 
greater criminal than the pilferer, but the 
murderer is something more than a mur- 
derer, and the pilferer something more than 
a pilferer. The murder and theft are 
but the outward expressions of an inward 
evil. Conscience, having been taught that 
murder is a greater crime than theft, so ren- 
ders its conviction. It is left for the Holy 
Spirit to go down into the subsoil of the 
soul and bring up to the light of conscious- 
ness the fact of the soul’s moral perversity. 
The world is at fault in its conception of 
evil. It sees only the outward manifestation 
and takes this for the thing itself. The 
Spirit will bring the world face to face with 
sin ; He will bring men to see the moral ruin 
of their own souls. 

This conviction wrought by the Spirit is 
in relation to Christ. This old world must 
be brought to see that Christ is a cosmic 
character. His coming was a divine event 
which affected all the ages. In Him God 
stooped down to earth. In Him the light of 


78 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 


heaven shined in upon the world. The 
world can be no more what it was before. 
If He had not come man might have had 
excuse for his sins, but since He has come 
there is no excuse. His position towards 
the world is unique. Christ stands between 
man and the law. Whatever claim the law 
had upon the race Christ settled it and now 
stands between us and Sinai. Therefore, it 
is the Son question which confronts the 
world. What will you do with Jesus? is the 
question which every man has to answer. 
The degree of guilt is just in proportion to 
the distance one stands from Christ. To be 
in the presence of goodness and not to love 
it; to see Christ and not be moved by the 
sight; to hear His voice and not respond to 
the call; to stand in the presence of the 
beauty of holiness and then turn away from 
it, this is the damning thing. It is the work 
of the Spirit to convict the world of this 
fact, to show the world that its destiny 
hangs upon its faith in Christ. 

2. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of 
righteousness. 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


This conviction of righteousness is 
wrought in connection with the exaltation 
of Christ. Christ is declared to be righteous 
only as He sits down at the right hand of 
God. Up to the time of His ascension He is, 
as it were, on trial. Just before His cruci- 
fixion He t says: “I have finished the work 
which Thou gavest me to do.” He passed 
by the way of the Mount of Temptation, 
down into the Valley of Suffering, up by the 
way of the Cross, through the dark portals 
of the grave, and on to glory. Why this 
rugged route? Ah, He is to sound every 
depth of human feeling, sentiment and suf- 
fering. It is only by doing this that He can 
condemn sin in the flesh. While He was do- 
ing this, while He was about the work of re- 
demption, there did come the question con- 
cerning the righteousness of His cause. It 
is as if He had said: “When the Spirit is 
come He will convict the world that the 
cause I represent is righteous. Men have 
thought all along that my ambitions were 
political. They have misunderstood me. 
But when I go to the Father and they see 


80 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 


that you are still faithful and that you are 
giving your lives for the cause which is dear 
to my heart, then they will be convicted that, 
after all, righteousness was what I desired 
and not political glory and power.” 

This conviction is to be wrought in con- 
nection with Christ’s ascension. This is 
God’s way of showing to the world that 
Christ was righteous. Our case is hope- 
less if Christ be not risen. But God raised 
Him up. He brought Him from the cross 
where He had been despised and rejected 
and placed Him upon the throne. The fact 
that Christ is on the throne settles the whole 
matter. The law has no accusation to bring 
against us. Satan has his mouth shut. 

The world is convicted of this fact by 
the Holy Spirit. Peter, on the day of Pente- 
cost, said : “ Jesus whom ye slew and hanged 
on a tree, Him God exalted with His right 
hand to be a prince and a Savior, for to give 
repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sin. 
And we are His witnesses of these things; 
and so also is the Holy Ghost.” The fact 
that the Holy Ghost came down is a proof 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


that Christ is at the right hand of the 
Father. Herein is the righteousness of God 
revealed. Who can doubt God’s saving pur- 
pose? If Christ is at the right hand of 
God then we know where we stand. Where 
the surety is seated there we are seated, be- 
cause we are in Him members of His body, 
redeemed by His blood. 

3. The Holy Spirit will convict the world 
of judgment. 

The third point in which the apostles 
were to prevail in their preaching of Christ 
was the conviction of judgment. This con- 
viction is not of a judgment to come. It 
is true that when the Holy Spirit convicts 
the world of sin, and of righteousness, there 
may follow the fear of a judgment to come, 
but that is not the idea here. This judg- 
ment is because the prince of this world is 
judged. It is a judgment that is going on 
now, a constant and universal element in 
God’s government. By this work of the 
Spirit men will be led to distinguish be- 
tween sin and righteousness in every pres- 
ent instance, to recognize that a distinction 


82 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 


is made between human actions, and that 
condemnation is pronounced upon all that 
are sinful. This judgment will be the final 
reversal of the world’s accepted standards. 
The world that has worldly ends in view 
and works towards them by appropriate 
means, disregarding moral distinctions, will 
be convicted of enormous error. It will be 
shown that all sin is a mistake, and that 
righteousness is the only thing that can 
bring permanent good to the race. 

This conviction will be preceded by two 
stupendous facts: the exaltation of Christ 
and the judgment of Satan. In Christ’s vic- 
tory the prince of this world is judged. The 
powers by which the world is led are seen 
to be productive of evil. This is made mani- 
fest by the attitude of Christ towards the 
prince of this world. Christ absolutely re- 
fused throughout his life to be in anything 
guided by the motives and principles which 
govern the world. He denied the right of 
Satan; He denied the justness and wisdom 
of his principles of conduct, and in His de- 
nial judged the prince whom the world fol- 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


lows. Because of this attitude the world 
crucified Him. Had the world been seeking 
spiritual beauty and prosperity it would 
have hailed the Christ as the embodiment of 
all that was glorious in human character. 
But it was seeking material gain and world- 
ly glory, and was thereby blinded to the 
highest form of godliness. This attitude of 
the world in its treatment of Christ is the 
most decided condemnation of its standards 
of judgment. We cannot think highly of 
principles and dispositions which so blind 
men to the highest form of human goodness 
and lead them to actions so unreasonable 
and wicked. 

The judgment of the prince of this world 
is a fact lying outside of the politics of the 
world, which may fume and rage as it will ; 
it is beyond the reach of the philosophy or 
literature, the courts or the armies, the 
fashions or the force of this world. The 
glorification of the Son of Man, to the ex- 
tent of His being declared to be the Son of 
God with power, will be the grand event 
which human nature will be powerless to 


84 


A RIGHT ROYAL ASSURANCE 


counteract or ultimately to resist. But let 
us not forget that the prince of this world 
dies hard. The atrocious wickedness which 
burst out, after the exaltation of Christ, 
among the people who had rejected their 
Lord, and the consummation of the mystery 
of iniquity in the Roman Empire, are evi- 
dences of the titanic struggle of the prince 
of darkness to maintain his position in op- 
position of the King of Light. 

Judgment has passed upon the world. 
This is the decree of Christ. To adhere to 
its principles, its ways, its ambitions, is to 
cling to a sinking ship. But this conviction 
is to come through the disciples by the 
Spirit. It is to be fulfilled in us. Is the 
prince of this world judged? Has the power 
that claims us as the servants of sin and 
mocks our strivings after righteousness 
been, so far as our own life is concerned, de- 
feated? This is the final test of the power 
of religion, of the potency of our faith in 
Him, of the truth of his words and the ef- 
ficacy of His work. 


85 


VII. 

A SOVEREIGN PROMISE. 

“But tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be in- 
dued with power from on high.” (Luke 
24:49.) “And ye shall receive power, the 
Holy Ghost coming upon you.” (Acts 1 :8.) 

These words were uttered at the close of 
our Lord’s ministry. He was giving His 
parting instruction to His disciples. He had 
commissioned them to be His witnesses — 
His message bearers — to the utmost parts 
of the earth. Upon them He had shoul- 
dered the responsibility of carrying forward 
the work which He had begun. They were 
to finish the organization of the church 
which He had instituted, preach His gospel 
to every nation, tribe and tongue, and push 
forward the work of world-conquest in His 
name until His will was done on earth as 
it is done in heaven. 


S'! 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


For three years these disciples had en- 
joyed the inestimable privilege of personal 
association with Christ. He had talked and 
walked with them, and as far as it was 
possible He had communicated Himself 
unto them. But now the life of Christ on 
earth is at an end. The time has come for 
Him to take His place at the right hand of 
the Majesty on High. The work of extend- 
ing the Kingdom must be given to these dis- 
ciples. But they lack something. During 
the past few days — the days of our Lord’s 
passion — these same disciples, who have 
been with Him through all His public life, 
have shown but scant determination, but 
feeble courage, and but little understanding 
of their Master’s aims. In their present 
condition they will never conquer the world. 
This fact Christ appreciates, and so he bids 
them tarry in Jerusalem for power. It is 
as if he had said : “I leave you to do a great 
work. You cannot do it in your own 
strength ; do not try, for you will fail if you 
do; but tarry in Jerusalem until I shall 
open the flood-gates of heaven and pour out 


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upon you the power necessary for your suc- 
cess.” 


The Apostles’ Need. 

It is very easy to understand why the 
apostles should be endued with this power 
from above: 

1. The greatness of the undertaking be- 
fore them demanded something more than 
human power for its accomplishment. 

They were to evangelize the world. It was 
given to them to preach the glad tidings of 
salvation to the uttermost parts of the 
earth. The obligation rested upon them to 
carry out the great commission, and they 
felt that their mission would not be complete 
until every idol temple had been destroyed 
and a temple of Jehovah erected in its place; 
until the earth had been redeemed from the 
curse of sin, so that instead of being the 
theater in which souls were prepared by 
crime for eternal doom, it should become 
one universal temple of God, where the chil- 
dren of men learn the anthems of the re- 
deemed and become meet to join the assemb- 


88 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


ly and church of the first-born whose names 
are written in heaven. They felt that their 
work would not be complete until : 

“One song employed all nations, and all cry 
Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us; 

The dwellers on the vales and on the rocks 
Shout to each other, and the mountain-tops 
From distant mountains catch the flying joy, 

Till, nation after nation taught the strain. 

Earth rolls the rapturous hozannas round." 

For such an undertaking as this the arm 
of flesh is too weak. Then how important to 
tarry for power. 

2. The natural training and social stand- 
ing of the men whom Jesus had selected and 
commissioned to do this great work w T ere 
such that they must have special power or 
else they will fail in the undertaking before 
them. 

They knew nothing of the current relig- 
ious theories of the day. They were un- 
familiar with the philosophical speculations 
of the times. They were unversed in the lore 
of the past, as well as the learning of the 
present. And yet to these untaught men 


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there is given the tremendous task of estab- 
lishing a religious system which not only 
stood in opposition to all existing systems, 
but which was destined in its final consum- 
mation to overthrow and destroy the mighty 
men-made creeds which then dominated the 
world. It is evident, then, that they are 
to conquer not by the power and polish of 
human logic, not by the strategy of human 
wisdom, but by the power which comes down 
from heaven. ( 1 Cor. 2 :4-5 ; 2 Cor. 4 :7. ) 

Not only were they unlearned men, but 
they were without social influence, or politi- 
cal power. They were chosen not from the 
scribes and pharisees ; nor from the priestly 
rank of Aaron ; nor from the kingly line of 
David. They were just fishermen. And these 
fishermen, with no social rank, with no polit- 
ical power, with no ecclesiastical organiza- 
tion, are commissioned to go into all the 
world and by their teaching and preaching 
lift the social structure of the ages off its 
hinges and turn the stream of the thought 
of the centuries out of its channel. This 
being their work, we can understand why 


90 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


Christ commanded them to wait at Jerusa- 
lem for power. 

The Person Of Power. 

There is nothing so mysterious, so difficult 
to define, as power. You say that it is 
force? Yes; but what is force? You say it 
is the ability to do work? Yes; but what is 
that ability? You say it is the property of 
a substance or being, spiritual or material, 
that is manifested in effort or action, and 
by virtue of which that substance or being 
produces or is competent to produce change, 
moral or physical. Yes; but what is that 
property which gives this ability? And so 
we might go on in the circle describing, but 
not defining power. This is because power 
is one of the fundamental elements, the last 
analysis of all the forces in the constitution 
of the universe, and as such can be defined 
only in terms of itself. 

But while we are unable to define power, 
yet we can locate it. The power which the 
disciples were to receive had its origin and 
source in the Holy Spirit. “Ye shall re- 


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ceive power, the Holy Ghost coming upon 
you.” Here the power which Christ prom- 
ised to His disciples is identified with the 
Spirit. This is in keeping with the teach- 
ing of the') Scriptures concerning the great 
fundamental elements in the divine econ- 
omy. Light, life, love are traced to their 
source and defined in terms which express 
their relation to the origin of all things. We 
are told that God is light. That in Christ 
is life, and the life is the light of men. More 
than once it is said that God is love. These 
terms point us to God as the source of light, 
life, love. Jesus points us to the Spirit as 
the source of power, yea, as the power which 
He will pour out upon His church. This lo- 
cates power and gives to it a character, a 
personality. Personality is a force, it is 
power. All the great currents of history 
have flowed from persons. Organization is 
powerful; but no organization has ever ac- 
complished anything until a person has 
stood at the center of it and filled it with his 
thought, with his life. We are told that 
“Truth crushed to earth will rise again, 

The eternal years of God are hers.” 


92 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


But it will never prevail actually until it 
becomes incarnated, until it gets itself em- 
bodied, and is lifted up by a personality. 
This power of personality, personality itself, 
is of spiritual origin. The power which 
every individual exercises, in fact the very 
life of the individual himself originates not 
in the nervous system, nor in the brain, but 
in the spirit. Every man is the product 
of spiritual forces which he cannot explain 
nor understand. The forces in ceaseless 
activity about us, such as gravitation, elec- 
tricity, radium, are not to be ascribed to 
matter, but to the mind of the Maker. So 
are we to ascribe all power in Christianity 
to the Spirit. Christianity has an organiza- 
tion, Christianity has a doctrine, but the 
forces of Christianity, that which makes it 
a world-power, is the person at the heart of 
it, who gives vitality to the organization and 
reality to the doctrine. All the abstract 
truths of Christianity might have come into 
the world in another form — nay, the sub- 
stance of these truths did actually come 
into the world, dimly and partially through 


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the fragmentary religions of the nations, 
more clearly and with increasing, prophetic 
light through the inspired Scriptures of the 
Hebrews; but still the world could not stir, 
still the truth could not make itself felt as a 
universal force in the life of humanity until 

' “The Spirit of God from heaven descending, 
Dwells in domes of clay.” 

We are now in the region of mystery. 
Prof. Austin Phelps remarks: “Next to the 
mystery of the three Persons in the Godhead 
is the habitation of the human spirit by the 
Divine Spirit.” But however mysterious 
this may be, still it is a fact. God does in- 
dwell His people. Paul had a union with 
Christ by the Holy Spirit so intimate that 
he speaks of his own heart throbbing in the 
bosom of the Lord. (Phil. 1:8.) We dwell 
in God, God dwells in us. Both personali- 
ties are retained, but mentally interpene- 
trated. We dwell in Him because we are 
inspired by His mighty personality and 
encompassed by His love. He dwells in us 
because our hearts have become the home of 
His Spirit, the temple of the Holy Ghost. 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


This inter-indwelling is the consummation 
of the relation of the believer to God in the 
divine economy. It begirds the weakness of 
man with the power of Omnipotence. It 
arches the future of the Church with the 
rainbow of hope. It makes the humble 
believer mighty through God, it gives to him 
the earnest of ultimate victory. This is the 
sovereign assurance of Christ. 

The Fulfilled Promise. 

The promise of Christ received complete 
fulfillment. On the day of Pentecost while 
the apostolic company was engaged in 
prayer a sudden rushing sound was heard 
as of the rushing of a mighty wind, which 
seemed to sweep through the room in which 
they were sitting and fill it with a new and 
inspiring atmosphere. As each one looked 
in astonishment upon his companion, he 
saw a central flame come and part, settling 
in divided streams on each one’s head. The 
mystic symbol soon passed away, but it left 
the disciples conscious of a new life. They 
were as men moved beyond themselves by a 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


mighty inward impulse. The glow of a 
divine kindling was upon their faces, the 
passion of a divine urging was within their 
souls, and the freedom of a divine utterance 
was upon their lips. They had been told to 
wait for power and the power had come. 
The Spirit, like a mighty breath from 
heaven, had filled them with a divine ener- 
gy. Their tongues were touched with the 
fire from off the altar and when they began 
to speak the thousands who were present 
at the feast felt the influenece of the divine 
enthusiasm and were moved by the divine 
presence. 

1. As the result of the infilling the apostles 
became strong to stand in the hour of temp- 
tation. It takes more than human power to 
stand out against the tempter. The forces 
of evil are subtle. Satan, the arch enemy of 
souls, is to be dreaded. He is learned in 
every lore, cultivated in every art, a master 
in every species of sophistry, and accom- 
plished in every manner of deception. Un- 
armed by the divine power, man is sure to 
fail when he faces the temptations which 


96 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


sweep his pathway. Up to this time these 
disciples had been faltering, cringing, men. 
But now the evils of the day have no power 
to influence them. They were unmoved by 
the temptations of the world, by the author- 
ity of the Jewish council or the fear of Ro- 
man sword. 

2. Not only are they strong to stand in the 
hour of temptation, but they are made 
strong to suffer in the cause of the Master. 

On the night of the crucifixion, they had 
been scattered as sheep without a shepherd. 
Peter, the leader of the apostolic band, had 
denied the Christ from fear of arrest and 
punishment. But now they are armed for 
every vicissitude. Prisons have lost their 
poAver to overawe. Scourging cannot deter 
them from proclaiming the message com- 
mitted to them. Even death itself has no 
terrors. Under the inspiration of the Spirit 
Paul exclaims : “Who can separate us from 
the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or 
anguish, or persecution, or famine, or 
nakedness, or peril, or sword? Even as it 
is written: “For thy sake we are killed 


97 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


all the day long. We are accounted as sheep 
for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things 
we are more than conquerors through Him 
that loved us. For I am persuaded that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin- 
cipalities, nor things present, nor things to 
come, nor powers, nor heights, nor depths, 
nor any other creature, shall be able to sep- 
arate us from the love of God which is in 
Christ Jesus our Lord.” (K. V.) 

3. They are also made strong and efficient 
witnesses. They began on that day to testi- 
fy for Christ. Peter, the spokesman of the 
twelve, said: “This same Jesus whom you 
have taken and with wicked hands have 
crucified, God hath raised up, whereof we 
are witnesses, and being by the right hand 
of God exalted, He hath poured forth this 
which you now see and hear.” (Acts ii, 
23-33). It was this testimony that cut 
them to the quick and caused them to cry 
out, “men and brethren, what shall we do?” 
Nor did the apostles cease their testimony 
with the passing of Pentecost. Wherever 
they went they preached. Put them in 


98 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


prison and they would have a prayer meet- 
ing that would shake the old prison doors 
open. In the dead hours of the night they 
would preach to a trembling jailer the Gos- 
pel of Life and baptize him before morning. 
They lived for no other purpose than to tell 
the story of God’s love. 

4. They were also made wise to grasp 
the central theme of the Gospel. 

The promise had been “When He, the 
Spirit of Truth is come He will lead you in- 
to all truth.” This He did. They were led 
into the truth and having grasped it they 
made it known to all ages through their let- 
ters, epistles and Gospels. 

5. They were also made strong to plan 
and to build. It was the apostles who 
reared the structure of the Church of 
Christ which has been grov/ing in power and 
might for nineteen centuries, and is to-day 
more than ever bent on the conquest of the 
world. Christ was at the head and Christ 
was in the heart of the Church, but the 
apostles were the inspired agents in its con- 
struction. When the Holy Spirit came into 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


them on the day of Pentecost, the powers 
of a new life, the forces of a new kingdom 
were theirs, and under the impulse of this 
heaven given power they worked and 
wrought. We know what made these 
weak men strong, these failing men to tri- 
umph. It was the power of the Holy 
Spirit resting upon them, opening their 
eyes that they might see, quickening their 
souls that they might feel, nerving their 
hearts that they might stand, and strength- 
ening their hands that they might labor and 
achieve. 

This Promise and the Church of To-day. 

I am free to say that what the Christian 
workman needs to-day is the power that 
comes down from God. We need the same 
kind of power that the apostles had after 
Pentecost. I do not mean the power to 
work miracles, to speak with tongues, these 
were but the accidents of the bestowal. The 
power to heal the sick or to speak with 
tongues of fire was as nothing compared 


100 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


with the power to testify without fear and 
live without reproach. 

“Though on our heads no tongues of fire 
Their wondrous power import,” 

yet we need as much as the apostles did the 
illuminating, sanctifying, empowering in- 
fluence of heaven — God’s Spirit in our 
hearts. Without this our most heroic ef- 
forts will fail ; with it our humblest endeav- 
ors will succeed. 

I call your attention to some of the rea- 
sons why the church of to-day needs this di- 
vine power for life and for service. 

1. We have the same Gospel to preach 
that the apostles had to preach. 

There has been no change. The commis- 
sion delivered to them is the commission 
delivered to us. The same Christ who said 
to them, “Go ye into all the world and 
preach the Gospel to every creature,” said 
to the church of to-day, “Go and preach to 
all the world.” If the apostles needed di- 
vine power in order to fulfill this command 
surely we need it. 


101 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


2. We have to meet with the same un- 
belief that they met with. 

The world may have changed in front, 
but it has not changed in attitude. The 
heart is just the same. Men are no more 
ready to accept the Gospel to-day than they 
were in the days of the apostles. God alone 
can save to-day just as he alone could save 
in the days of the apostles. He who would 
go out to reach and save men must have the 
power from heaven if he would be success- 
ful. 

3. Another need for this power is mani- 
fested in the weakness of the church of to- 
day and the helplessness of the people of 
God in view of the work which Christ has 
commissioned them to do. 

Our great cities which are more and more 
becoming congested centers of population, 
are firmly held in the grip of sin and Satan. 
Sin is becoming more and more evident. 
Men are drifting out from under the influ- 
ence of the church. All kinds of pseudo- 
religious cults are springing into existence 
and finding currency among the people. 


102 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 


These and many other signs indicate that 
the trend of present-day thought is away 
from the church. 

Not only so but with every door of the 
world open to us we stand unable on ac- 
count of the lack of men and means to en- 
ter the field. Never before did the people 
of God have more money than they have 
now, and yet those who are in the work of 
world-wide evangelism have to beg and 
plead to get a pittance with which to carry 
on the work. Is it not a sign that we need 
the Spirit of power when the Church of the 
living God, the Lamb’s Bride, lies like a 
bleeding pauper at the door of an unfriend- 
ly world while those who profess to be the 
children of the Most High God are revel- 
ing in the luxury of the land? Oh, let us 
go to God for power. 

This Power For All. 

I hear some one saying, “Can I be filled 
with the Spirit? Will he endue me for life 
and for service? Is this promise made to 
me?” Come to the school of the Master and 


103 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


hear Him as He talks about this wonderful 
gift. “If ye love me, keep my command- 
ments. And I will pray the Father, and 
He shall give you another Comforter, that 
He may abide with you forever; even the 
Spirit of truth ; whom the world cannot re- 
ceive because it seeth Him not neither 
knoweth Him; but ye know him; for He 
dwelleth with you and shall be in you.” 
(Jno. 14:15-17.) This is Jesus speaking to 
His disciples. He is telling them about a 
promised gift. That gift is the Comforter. 
“And being assembled together with them 
commanded them that they should not de- 
part from Jerusalem, but wait for the prom- 
ise of the Father, which, saith He, Ye 
have heard of Me.” (Acts 1:4.) This is 
His teaching. How does this correspond 
with that which actually occurred? 

On the day of Pentecost Peter stood up 
and said: “This Jesus God raised up of 
which we are all witnesses. Being there- 
fore by the right hand of God exalted, and 
having received of the Father the promise 
of the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this 


104 


A SOVEREIGN PROMISE 

which ye now see and hear.” (Acts 2:33.) 
There can be no doubt that this event is the 
fulfillment of the promise made to the dis- 
ciples. Were we included in that promise? 
Let us see. Peter under the power of the 
Spirit which had just filled him said in 
reply to the question of those around him: 
“Repent and be baptized every one of you 
for the remission of sin, and you shall re- 
ceive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the 
promise is unto you and to your children 
and to all that are afar off, even as many as 
the Lord our God shall call.” (Acts 2:38- 
39.) Are you one of the called of God? 
Then Peter says the promise is for you. 

Tarry at Jerusalem until ye be endued 
with power from on high. It is this power 
that you need. It is the supernatural plus 
the natural. Do not go to war in your own 
strength. Do not undertake the work of 
the divine Christ in your own power. You 
might as well run your head against a wall 
of adamant as to try to push aside the bar- 
riers which stand in the way of a souPs 
salvation. Then tarry for enduement. Pros- 


105 


POWER FCR SERVICE 


trate yourself before Almighty God. Go to 
Him and say, “Lord, here I am. I am not 
worth much; I am not worth anything in 
Thy kingdom unless the divine Spirit come 
into me and use me. But I do offer myself. 
Oh, God, make me fit for service.” “And ye 
shall receive power, the Holy Spirit coming 
upon you.” 



10 <> 


VIII 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 

In the study of the Old Testament we find 
that it is foretold of Christ that his life- 
work would crystallize into an organization 
so powerful that it would break in pieces 
the kingdoms of the earth. In the New Tes- 
tament we have a foregleam of the fulfill- 
ment of that ancient prophecy in the lan- 
guage of the Master : ‘‘Upon this rock I will 
build my Church, and the gates of hell shall 
not prevail against it.” ( Matt 16 :18. ) The 
Church, then, is in no sense a human insti- 
tution. Christ is its author. All things con- 
cerning it were ordered in the councils of 
eternity. « 

The public ministry of the Lord Jesus 
was, however, too short for the full consum- 
mation of the divine plan in the organiza- 
tion of the Church. At his ascension he left 
his followers with the bond of eternal union 
only partially perfected. It is true there 


107 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


had been the initial organization — the or- 
daining of the twelve (Mark 3:13-19, Luke 
6:12-16) — but the structure had not taken 
on that completeness which was absolutely 
essential if the Church was to become a 
world-power. In fact, there must be an 
awakening to the sweep of the divine princi- 
ples underlying this organization on the 
part of those who are to be incorporated in 
it, for as yet they have little conception of 
the spirit and genius of the Master’s King- 
dom. To be sure, they have the recollection 
of His commands, and of His teachings, but 
they need to be brought into a realization of 
the full meaning of the body of truth which 
He left them. This work, the work of bring- 
ing to perfection the organization of the 
Church, was the work of the Holy Spirit. 
In this work the Spirit sustains an essen- 
tial relation to the Church. 

The Spirit Comes Upon the Church . 

When Jesus ascended to the Father His 
command to the waiting Church was : “Tar- 
ry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with 


108 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


power from on high. And ye shall receive 
power, the Holy Ghost coming upon you.” 
(Acts 1:4-8.) They continued to meet and 
worship and wait for the “promise of the 
Father” — the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 
On the day of Pentecost the promised Spirit 
came and filled all the house where they 
were sitting. (Acts 2 :l-4.) This was a bap- 
tism in the Spirit (Acts 1:5) — an anointing 
of the Church for the conquest of the world. 

In Old Testament history we have two 
beautiful incidents in the dealing of God 
with His people which are types, illustrat- 
ing the anointing of the Church. These 
events are the divine anointing of the Tab- 
ernacle and the Temple. We are told that 
when Moses had completed the work of con- 
secration that “a cloud covered the tent of 
the congregation, and the glory of the Lord 
filled the Tabernacle. * * * And the 

cloud of the Lord was upon the Tabernacle 
by day, and fire was on it by night, in the 
sight of all the house of Israel, throughout 
all their journeys.” (Ex. 40:34-38.) This 
was a glorious time for Israel. They now 


109 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


have the divine proof that all that Moses 
had told them, when he came down out of 
the Mount, was true. For months, under 
his instruction, they had been preparing the 
material for the erection of this place of 
worship. At last it stood before them com- 
plete in every part. But it yet remains to 
be seen whether the God whose presence is 
manifest in the pillar of cloud and fire will 
come down and tabernacle with them in the 
house they have built for Him. The days 
of consecration are over. The last sacrifice 
has been offered. The hearts of the people 
are turned toward heaven. Behold, a won- 
derful spectacle ! The cloud which has gone 
before them is settling on the Tabernacle. 

“God came down their souls to greet 
And glory crowned the mercy seat.” 

At the dedication of the first temple there 
is a like experience. We are told that 
“when Solomon had made an end of pray- 
ing the fire came down from heaven and 
consumed the burnt offering and the sacri- 
fices; and the glory of the Lord filled the 
house. * * * And when all the children of 


110 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 

Israel saw how the fire came down, and the 
glory of the Lord upon the house, they 
bowed themselves with their faces to the 
ground upon the pavements, and worshiped 
and praised the Lord, saying: For He is 
good; for His mercy endureth forever.” (II 
Chron. 7 :l-3.) This was another great ex- 
perience in the life of Israel. For years, 
under the leadership of their two greatest 
kings, they had been preparing and build- 
ing the temple. Now it is complete. Will 
Jehovah God come down and dwell in it? 
Will there be a visible manifestation of His 
presence and His power? These are the 
questions that are surging through the 
minds of anxious Israel. The dedication 
service is over. The prayer of the ruler of 
the people is finished. In silent expectancy 
they await the result. Behold, a wonderful 
phenomenon ! Mysterious fire falls from the 
unknown somewhere and kindles the blaze 
upon the altar and consumes the sacrifice. 
It is enough. Waiting Israel falls upon her 
face and cries: 

“The Lord is good 
For His mercy endureth forever.” 


Ill 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


These things are but types and shadows 
of the more perfect day. Behold, the time 
has come in the history of human events 
when God’s temple is not to be built of 
stone, but of the loving hearts of his follow- 
ers. For three years the mighty Son of God 
has been going up and down the length and 
breadth of Palestine, gathering together the 
material for the erection of his new dwell- 
ing-place. He has appointed the supreme 
officers in that new organization, but before 
there can be further progress it must be an- 
ointed for the indwelling presence. The re- 
demptive work of Christ for the race calls 
Him to the right hand of the Majesty on 
high. And so he commands the Church to 
wait for the “promise of the Father.” The 
ten days of consecration are completed. 
The hearts of the disciples are turned to- 
wards heaven. There is a hush of intense 
expectancy. Behold, a wonderful phenom- 
enon ! “ Suddenly there came a sound from 
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it 
filled all the house where they were sitting. 
And there appeared unto them cloven 


112 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each 
of them. And they were all filled with the 
Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other 
tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” 
(Acts 2 :l-4.) This was a mighty day in the 
history of the Church of God. The promise 
of Christ is fulfilled. God has come again 
to tabernacle with His people. That day 
there was opened in the world the temple of 
our God. That day the Church was vital- 
ized for service and began her career of 
preaching the gospel of reconciliation. That 
day there was opened to the nations the 
mercy seat. 

“There is a place where Jesus sheds 
The oil of gladness on our heads: 

A place than all beside more sweet: 

It is the blood-bought mercy seat. 

“There is a spot where spirits blend, 

Where friend holds fellowship with friend; 

Though sundered far, by faith they meet 
Around one common mercy seat. 

“There, there, on eagle-wings we soar, 

And time and sense all seem no more; 

And heaven comes down our souls to greet, 
And glory crowns the mercy seat.” 


113 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


The Spirit Abides in the Church. 

The Spirit not only comes upon the 
Church, enduing it with power and setting 
up the mercy seat among men, but He also 
abides in the Church. At the baptism of 
Jesus the special distinguishing sign to 
John was that the Spirit abode upon Christ. 
(John 1:33.) In like manner, when the 
waiting Church was baptized on the day of 
Pentecost, we are told that “there appeared 
unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, 
and it sat upon each of them.” Compare 
this “sat” with the “sat” in Heb. (1:3). Do 
you not see the relation? In Heb. (1:3) we 
are told that Christ sat down on the right 
hand of the Majesty on high; in Acts (2:3) 
we are told that the Holy Spirit sat down 
upon the heads of the disciples. What is 
the teaching? Ah, it is this: When Christ 
sat down on the right hand of the Majesty 
on high, then the Holy Spirit sat down on 
the throne of the Church. This is what Pe- 
ter means when he says: “This same Jesus 
being by the right hand of God exalted * * 


114 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


hath poured forth this which you both see 
and hear.” (Acts 2:33.) As truly, then, as 
Christ's abiding place is in heaven, the Holy 
Spirit’s abiding place is in the Church. 

We are not to understand by this that the 
Holy Spirit is not in the believer. He is in 
the believer, but the Church as an organiza- 
tion gives the Holy Spirit a corporate body. 
Christ came down in the person of the Holy 
Spirit to constitute the center for the 
Church, and as soon as believers were re- 
generated they were incorporated by the 
Spirit into the Church (I Cor. 12:13) — the 
body of Christ, But the Holy Spirit enters 
into each one of those who are incorporated 
into this mystical body. (John 14:17.) 

In Old Testament times God dwelt in the 
Temple. The Shekinah, that mysterious 
light and awful flame, burned in the holy 
of holies as the symbol of God’s immediate 
and constant presence. The Church is the 
temple to-day. Paul tells us that we are 
builded on the foundation of the apostles 
and prophets, Christ himself “being the 
chief corner-stone; in whom all the build- 


115 


POWER FOR SERV1CH 


ing, fitly framed together, groweth unto an 
holy temple unto the Lord ; in whom we are 
all builded together for an habitation of 
God through the Spirit.” (Eph. 2:19-22.) 
Here the Church is called a temple of God, 
and each member a living stone in that tem- 
ple. The temple of old was built of 
stone ; this temple is built of living and lov- 
ing hearts. In that temple of old the She- 
kinah burned in the holy of holies as the 
symbol of God’s presence; in this new tem- 
ple the Holy Spirit abides — God with us. 
Notice what this abiding means: 

1. It means His constant presence. 

To be orphaned is far sadder than to be 
impoverished. The four walls of a house 
do not constitute a home for children — 
mother must be there. Christ said to His 
disciples: “I will not leave you orphans; I 
will come to you.” The Holy Spirit is the 
mother Spirit of the Trinity. As such, the 
Spirit is the Comforter. There are cries of 
the soul which the richest gifts of the world 
will not satisfy; like a child crying for its 
mother, the soul goes out after God, and 


116 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


nothing but His presence will satisfy its 
longings. When our emptiness and our 
loneliness press down upon us nothing but 
his presence will do. In sorrow, in disap- 
pointment, in struggle, His cheering words, 
“It is I,” calms every fear and comforts 
every heart. 

2. It means also a vitalized Church — a 
Church full of life and power. 

Where the Spirit is, there is life. On the 
day of Pentecost He incarnated Himself in- 
to the Church. He became then its vital 
force. In many theological treatises the 
definition of a Church is : “A body of believ- 
ers voluntarily associated together for the 
purpose of worship and edification.” You 
had as well say that a man is a voluntary 
association of hands and feet for the pur- 
pose of work and locomotion. Man is a 
germ, and grows into being from and 
through the impulses of the inner life. 
There is a living organism, and the parts 
are not simply associated; they are vitally 
connected and animated by the powers of 
life within. So the Church of Christ is an 


117 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


organism, in which the parts are not simply 
associated, but vitally joined to each other 
into one living body, of which Christ is the 
head. (I Cor. 12:1-27.) This body — the 
Church — is animated by the Spirit. When 
Christ ascended to heaven he poured out the 
Holy Spirit upon His Church. That day 
the Spirit began his organizing work — the 
gathering together of the body of Christ — 
in the formation of the Church of God. He 
becomes the vital center of the Church’s 
life, and, like a mighty magnet, he draws 
to the Lord Jesus Christ and adds them 
into His body — the Church — those who are 
included in the redemptive purpose of Al- 
mighty God. 

The Spirit the Administrator of the Church 

Christ tells his apostles that when the 
Spirit is come that He will guide them into 
all truth. The public ministry of Christ 
was too short for the consummation of the 
divine institutions and the complete devel- 
opment of all divine teaching. Hence the 
promised Spirit. The Spirit is to continue 


118 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


to tlieir consummation the forces and in- 
fluences of divine grace which were revealed 
in visible manifestation in the earthly life 
of Christ. He is the vicegerent in the King- 
dom of King Jesus. In the exercise of this 
administrative prerogative He perfoms the 
following functions: 

1. He bestows gifts. 

“Now, there are divers gifts, but the same 
Spirit,” and after enumerating a long list of 
gifts, Paul sums them all up and says : “All 
these worketh that one and the selfsame 
Spirit dividing to every man severally as He 
wills.” (I Cor. 12:4-11.) 

There are no gifts apart from the Spirit. 
The promise of power is connected with the 
coming of the Spirit. A Spirit-baptized 
Church is a gifted Church. The amount of 
good done by any Church never exceeds the 
degree in which the Spirit is being recog- 
nized and obeyed. We will treat this phase 
of his work in a separate chapter. 

2. He appoints the officers. 

“Take heed, therefore, unto yourselves, 
and to all the flock over which the Holy 


119 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Ghost hath made yon overseers.” (Acts 
20 :28. ) The Holy Spirit also said : “Set me 
apart Paul and Barnabas for the work 
whereunto I have called them.” (Acts 13 :2.) 
This is sufficient to show the part which the 
Spirit played in the selection of the officers 
and workmen of the early Church. 

It is true that this selection was made 
through the members of the Church, but it 
is no less the work of the Spirit. So was 
Saul chosen king over Israel by the Lord 
before he was chosen by the people, but it 
was no less a choice of the people. So, in 
the Church the Spirit works through the 
members. This is seen in Acts (15:28). 
The Holy Spirit was the invisible chairman 
of that Council, and directed the proceed- 
ings. Recognition of and obedience to him 
is the only way to advance the interests of 
the Master and conserve the power of the 
Church. 

3. He directs and attends the ministries 
of the Church. 

There are three public functions in the 
ministries of the Church. These are direct- 


120 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


ed by the Holy Spirit. I call your attention 
to them, with references: 

( 1 ) Preaching. 

It hath pleased God that by the foolishness 
of preaching the world should be brought to 
Him. But this preaching will be powerless 
if it is not in the power of the Holy Ghost. 
(1 Pet. 1:12.) It was the power of the 
Spirit in the preaching of Peter on the day 
of Pentecost that produced such wonderful 
results. It is the lack of that power in 
much of the preaching of to-day that causes 
our churches to be empty. Where the Spirit 
is there is power, and where there is power 
there will be results. No man’s preaching 
can be fruitless if he preaches in the power 
of the Spirit. This is the record of everyone 
into whose life the Spirit has come. 

Len. G. Broughton says : “I distinctly re- 
member the time when I first looked to the 
Holy Spirit for power with that same re- 
ceptive faith with which I formerly looked 
to Christ for salvation. From that day 
there has been a power in my ministry 
which I cannot explain other than it is the 


121 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Spirit working through me.” F. B. Meyer 
says: “Ever since I made a whole and un- 
conditional surrender to Christ for service 
there have been rivers of living water flow- 
ing out from me.” Dwight L. Moody said : 
“Since I gave myself wholly to God I do not 
think that I have preached a sermon but 
what some one has been converted.” 

I might multiply examples, but this is 
enough to show that in the practical expe- 
rience of the workmen of God the thing we 
need to vitalize our ministrations from the 
pulpit is the power of the Spirit. 

(2) .Witnessing. 

“Ye shall receive power, after that the 
Holy Ghost is come upon you ; and ye shall 
be witnesses unto me.” (Acts 1:8.) Noth- 
ing is more important in the work of Christ 
than witnessing. 

I have in my church a man who is an in- 
spiration to every meeting in which he has 
a chance to testify. He is an uneducated 
man, scarcely able to read, but when he 
stands up to talk you immediately perceive 
that he has been with God. He always be- 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


gins by saying, “I thank God that I am on 
the solid rock.” And there is a pathos in 
his voice that stirs the soul. The congrega- 
tion has again and again been moved to 
tears by his simple testimony to the keeping 
and saving grace of the Lord Jesus. I 
sometimes think that this man’s testimony, 
in the testimony service which we nearly 
always have just before the sermon, is more 
powerful and has more to do with the many 
conversions which take place in these meet- 
ings than my sermons. 

But we are not to limit the word “wit- 
ness” to verbal testimony. Literally, the 
word means “to show forth.” There are 
many ways in which to show Him forth. The 
promise is that we shall show Him forth, 
not may show Him forth, when the Holy 
Spirit is come upon us. 

(3) Prayer. 

“We know not what we should pray for as 
we ought; but the Spirit maketh interces- 
sion for us with groanings yhicli cannot be 
uttered. * * * He maketh intercession for 
the saints according to the will of God.” 


123 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


( Rom. 8 :26-27. ) The greatest privilege in 
the kingdom of grace is the privilege of ac- 
cess to the throne of God. But we do not 
know how to use this privilege. Our limi- 
tations make it impossible for us to know 
what is best, and so the Holy Spirit comes 
in to meet this need. Here we are led into 
touch with the Infinite by the Infinite Him- 
self. This Divine Spirit who looks back- 
ward — or rather upward — into eternity, and 
sees the throne, and the King with His sov- 
ereign will, and the lines of that perfect and 
infallible plan yhich stretch from center to 
infinity, so connects Himself with the con- 
sciousness of the devotions of the saints as 
to put them en rapport with the heart and 
secure for them the best of the Divine gifts. 

4. The Holy Spirit, in His administra- 
tive authority, directs the missionary activi- 
ties of the Church. 

The references given below are taken from 
the pen of Dr. A. J. Gordon. They are com- 
plete and exhaustive. 

(1) The Spirit selects missionaries. 
(Acts 12:2.) 


124 


THE ANOINTING OF THE CHURCH 


( 2 ) Sends them out. ( Acts 13 :4. ) 

(3) Empowers them to speak. (Acts 
13 :9.) 

(4) Sustains them in persecution. (Acts 
13 :50-52.) 

(5) Sets the Divine seal upon their min- 
istry. (Acts 15:8.) 

(6) Counsels them. (Acts 15:28.) 

(7) Guides and restrains them. (Acts 
16 :6-7.) 

The Spirit’s work is to call out and pre- 
pare a people for the Lord. It is His work 
to prepare the bride for the coming of the 
groom and the marriage. So the gathering 
of the faithful will go on until the Church 
of God is complete; until He has called out 
of the Gentiles a people for His name. 
Then we will be caught up to meet Him in 
the clouds. Until that time we are to show 
forth His glory in the world. As he repre- 
sents us in heaven, so are we to represent 
Him on the earth. It is for this work that 
the Spirit prepares us. If we would then 
be to the praise of His glory, we must be 
submissive to His Spirit, for in everything 
within the sphere of the Church the Spirit 
is the guide and teacher. 


125 


IX. 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST! 

John the Baptist, in comparing his work 
with the w r ork of Christ, says: “I indeed 
baptize you with water unto repentance; 
but He that cometh after me is mightier 
than I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not 
worthy to unloose ; He will baptize you with 
the Holy Ghost and with fire.” (Matt, iii, 
1-12.) Just before He left the world Jesus 
said to His disciples: “For John truly bap- 
tized with water; but ye shall be baptized 
with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.” 
(Acts i, 4-5.) Peter in reporting the con- 
version of Cornelius to the disciples at Jeru- 
salem said: “As I began to speak the Holy 
Ghost fell upon them as on us at the be- 
ginning, then remembered I the Word of 
the Lord, how that He said, “John indeed 
baptized with water; but ye shall be bap- 
tized with the Holy Ghost.” (Acts 11: 
15-16.) 


126 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

From these passages it is evident that 
there is, in the redemptive economy, an oper- 
ation of the Holy Spirit which is likened 
unto baptism. To say that these are figu- 
rative expressions will not satisfy the con- 
ditions, for though this baptism be figura- 
tive, yet there must be some special work 
of the Spirit prefigured, or else these pas- 
sages are senseless. In the light of the fig- 
ure used to set forth this special work of the 
Spirit, it seems to me that the divine writer 
is endeavoring to bring before our minds 
the idea of a supernatural envelopment, a 
coming upon, an overshadowing to that de- 
gree by the Spirit that it may be likened to 
a baptism. This is the most natural inter- 
pretation. 

In determining what the baptism of the 
Holy Spirit is we must study it in connec- 
tion with other related New Testament phe- 
nomena. We can never understand any doc- 
trine thoroughly until we have given it its 
proper place in the economy of redemption 
and viewed it in its relation to the whole 
body of truth. Each doctrine has its own 


127 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


particular place in the divine catalogue. 
All of them taken together form the divine 
system. Leave any one of them out, or 
take any one of them out of their connection, 
and you have disturbed the relation and de- 
stroyed the system. It is of vital import- 
ance, therefore, that we understand the re- 
lation which the baptism of the Spirit bears 
to other related doctrines. 

Spirit Baptism and Regeneration . 

The baptism of the Spirit is not regener- 
ation. There is a distinct difference be- 
tween the two. The difference is this, re- 
generation is the Spirit working in the 
heart, changing it and making its governing 
disposition holy ; Spirit baptism is the over- 
shadowing power of the Spirit coming upon 
the thing baptized. The one is the prepara- 
tion of the soul for the indwelling of the 
Spirit; the other the dedication of the pre- 
pared house to his indwelling. The taber- 
nacle and the temple are both illustrations 
of the difference between regeneration and 
the baptism of the Spirit. When the taber- 


128 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


nacle had been finished and the finished 
structure dedicated to God then the cloud 
came down and enveloped it; it was over- 
whelmed in the very presence of God. From 
then on God spoke to Moses from the taber- 
nacle! from then on the shekinah burned in 
the most holy place. (Ezek. xl, 33-38.) At 
the dedication of the temple there was a like 
experience. When Solomon had prayed the 
dedicatory prayer, then the glory of the 
Lord filled it. (II Chron. vii, 1-2.) These 
are but types and shadows of the more per- 
fect things. In the New Testament, God’s 
tabernacle, God’s temple, is a place not 
built with hands, but the hearts of His be- 
lieving children made fit for his indwelling 
by the regenerating power of the Holy 
Spirit. He did not come into the taberna- 
cle and the temple of old until they were 
prepared for His coming. Neither does He 
come into the human temple until it has 
been prepared for His indwelling. 

That there is a difference between regen- 
eration and the baptism of the Spirit will 
appear from the following considerations. 


129 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


1. The Spirit cannot be received by the 
world. 

Christ in speaking to His disciples said: 
“I will pray the Father and He will give 
you another Comforter that He may abide 
with you forever; even the Spirit of truth, 
whom the world cannot receive because it 
seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him; but 
ye know Him for He dwelleth with you, and 
shall be in you.” (John xiv, 16*17.) 

The Comforter which the disciples are to 
receive cannot be received by the world. 
The world knoweth Him not, neither seeth 
Him. “The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, is not subject to His law, neither in- 
deed can be.” It would be impossible for 
the Spirit to come into the life of an unre- 
generated man and fill it with all of His 
fullness. There must first be the regenera- 
tion of the heart. 

2. The disciples were believers when 
they received Spirit baptism. 

In the First Chapter of Acts, Christ in 
His last message promises the Spirit to 
them, not that they may become followers 


130 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


of His, but that they may have power to 
witness for Him. 

3. The case of the Samaritans. 

If it can be shown that there is a single 
instance where Spirit baptism is distinct 
from regeneration this is sufficient to estab- 
lish the fact that they are not one and the 
same thing. The case of the Samaritans es- 
tablishes this point. Philip had preached 
Jesus unto them, they had believed and had 
been baptized. When the disciples in Jeru- 
salem heard of the work which Philip had 
done they sent Peter and John that they 
might confirm the work, and when Peter 
and John came they prayed for the Samar- 
itans that they might receive the Holy 
Ghost, for as yet He was fallen upon none 
of them; only they were baptized in the 
name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts viii, 5-16). 
Here is a clear case in point. These who 
had gladly received the Word of the Lord 
and, upon a profession of their faith, had 
been baptized, had not received the Holy 
Spirit. This reception came afterwards. 

These three instances are sufficient to 


131 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


show that there is a difference between re- 
generation and the baptism of the Spirit. 
The two are distinct and separate opera- 
tions of the Spirit. 

Spirit Baptism and Filling. 

We find several terms used to set forth 
the work of the Holy Spirit. When we read 
Acts x, 44-47, in connection with Acts xi, 16- 
17, we are inclined to think that the terms 
used are interchangeable. Such terms as 
“filled with the Spirit,” “the Holy Spirit 
coming upon them,” “the gift of the 
Spirit,” and “baptized with the Spirit,” are 
not used interchangeably, but each ex- 
presses a separate and distinct idea. 

The term “baptized with the Spirit” in- 
dicates the act. This John tells us is per- 
formed by Christ. (Matt, iii, 11. Mark i, 
8. Luke iii, 16.) The term “filled with the 
Spirit” indicates the condition of the disci- 
ples after the baptism had taken place. The 
baptism is an overwhelming by the Spirit; 
filling is the result following that over- 
whelming. (Acts ii, 1-12.) The terms 


132 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


“poured out” and “coming upon them” in- 
dicate the manner of the Spirit’s entrance 
into the world. He is said to be poured — it 
is as if God had opened the flood-gates of 
heaven and deluged the world with a Niaga- 
ra of spiritual power. After He comes — after 
He is poured out — then the baptism takes 
place. This pouring out was but once. That 
was on the day of Pentecost. At that pour- 
ing out God made the spiritual river into 
which He baptizes His own. The terms 
“gift of the Father” and “promise of the 
Father” indicate the source from whence 
this divine flood-tide comes and specifies the 
Spirit as the promised element into which 
this baptism is to take place. (Acts i, 14; 
ii, 32-33.) 

If we will keep these distinctions in mind 
we will not become confused over the terms 
“baptized” and “filled.” There is but one 
baptism, there may be many fillings. The 
baptism of the Spirit promised by Christ 
took place on the day of Pentecost, but Peter 
received a new filling (Acts iv, 8) and they 
were all filled again in Acts iv, 31. This 


133 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


was simply a new filling. The difference is 
this : In baptism the Spirit comes for fellow- 
ship; in filling, fullness is received for ser- 
vice. The one was the initiatory rite; the 
other the indwelling presence. By the one 
God put the stamp of His divine approval 
upon the Church, accrediting it before the 
world ; by the other God came into the lives 
of the individual disciples, empowering 
them for the work of witnessing. 

Spirit Baptism a Definite Act. 

This overwhelming of the Spirit which 
constitutes the baptism is a definite act. It 
is an experience which the apostles knew 
had taken place. The Bible is a definite 
book. In the economy of grace every step 
in the process of man’s salvation is a defi- 
nite transaction. The act of faith is a defi- 
nite act. Regeneration is a definite trans- 
action. So is the resurrection of the dead 
and the glorification of the redeemed. The 
Bible is just as definite in its statements 
concerning the baptism of the Spirit. If it 
were not so, how could the apostles have de- 


134 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


termined when the days of their tarrying 
were at an end? Do you not suppose that 
they knew definitely that they had been en- 
dued with power from on high? Surely 
Peter knew, for he called the descent of the 
Spirit upon the Gentiles a like experience 
to that which they had received on the day 
of Pentecost. The whole teaching of Script- 
ure on this subject is to the effect that the 
baptism of the Spirit is a definite and dis- 
tinct thing. 

Baptism and the Gift of Tongues. 

Taking the statement of Christ to His dis- 
ciples, “John indeed baptized with water, 
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy 
Ghost not many days hence,” in connection 
with the description of the Pentecostal 
scene as written by Luke in the second 
chapter of Acts, it is evident that there w^as 
a supernatural manifestation in connection 
wfith the fulfillment of the promise which 
Christ made. But this manifestation was 
not the baptism. On the day of Pentecost, 
two things took place. 


135 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


1. The coming of the Spirit into the 
world. 

2. The baptism in the Holy Spirit. 

The supernatural manifestation of that 
occasion was incident to the coming of the 
Spirit into the world, and not an essential 
part of the baptism at all. The coming of 
the Spirit was attended by a sound as of 
a rushing, mighty wind, the baptism itself 
was silent. This explains the other phe- 
nomena attending that occasion. The 
speaking with tongues and the fiery mani- 
festation at this particular baptism are not 
essential parts, or necessary results of 
Spirit baptism, but are the supernatural 
manifestations attendant upon the begin- 
ning of the new dispensation and the estab- 
lishment of the new order of things. 

In the study of divine history we find 
every new step in the evolution of God’s 
plan attended and attested by supernatural 
manifestations. God gave to Abraham a 
divine proof of his overshadowing presence. 
The establishment of Judaism is confirmed 
by pillar of cloud, and fire — by audible voice 


136 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 

proclaiming God’s presence and God’s ap- 
proval. These were given to confirm the 
new order of things, and when that order 
was established they ceased. Only when 
God’s divine plans needed confirming among 
men were these supernatural manifestations 
repeated. 

We have now come to a new era. A new 
dispensation is to begin. There is a new 
step in the evolution of divine doings. The 
Holy Spirit is to begin His dispensational 
work. For the first time He comes into the 
world as the vicar of Christ in a new order 
of things. And so there are, as there have 
been in all past history, supernatural man- 
ifestations. These supernatural manifesta- 
tions are not a part of the baptism, they 
belong to the coming of the Spirit into the 
world. They are for the confirming of the 
new dispensation. 

This will appear when we take the prom- 
ise of Christ to His disciples and compare 
it with the teaching of the apostles in Cor- 
inthians. Christ promised simply power: 
“And ye shall have power, the Holy Ghost 


137 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


coming upon you.” Paul tells us that of 
the gifts of the Spirit, speaking with tongues 
is only one, and not the greatest either, 
out of many. (I Cor. xii, 10; xiv, 1-19.) The 
relation of speaking with tongues to the 
baptism of the Spirit is this: The gift of 
tongues is one of the gifts of the Spirit, and 
is associated with the baptism of the Spirit, 
but belongs more to the phenomena attend- 
ing the establishing of the new dispensation 
than it does to Spirit baptism. The essen- 
tial characteristic of Spirit baptism is not 
the gift of tongues but power. Tongues 
may or may not attend Spirit baptism, but 
power always does. This distinction will 
help us to come to a true conception on this 
important subject. 

The Subjects of Spirit Baptism. 

There are two general theories held con- 
cerning the subjects of Spirit baptism. 

First — There are those who hold that the 
Church as such received this baptism in the 
beginning, and that the Church alone is the 
depository of the Spirit. 


138 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


This school is divided into two classes. 
One division holds that the Church being 
the depository, the Holy Spirit can only be 
dispensed by the Church through its estab- 
lished orders. This is the contention of 
Catholics and High Church Episcopalians. 
The other division holds that Spirit bap- 
tism was primarily upon the Church to 
accredit it before the world as the divinely 
constituted organization for the evangeliza- 
tion of the world. 

Second — On the other hand, there are 
those that hold that this baptism is only 
upon individuals as such and that its pri- 
mary purpose is equipment for service. 

According to this view, service being the 
continuous demand of the kingdom, Spirit 
baptism is a continuous operation, the priv- 
ilege and supreme need of every believer. 
Those who hold to this theory believe that 
Spirit baptism is a distinct and second 
work of grace and that it can be received 
only by prayer and faith and special conse- 
cration, by which one puts himself in the 
proper attitude before Christ to receive this 


139 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


baptism. In this school, there are two main 
classes. There are those who hold that this 
second work of grace is nothing more than 
a special divine enduement for service. Such 
in the main are the Keswicites. There are 
others who hold that this second work of 
grace is for the purpose of eradicating orig- 
inal sin. By this baptism they claim that 
believers are sanctified and sealed for the 
Master’s service. This position is generally 
held by different branches of the Holiness 
people. 

I simply state these positions in order 
that you may be acquainted with the theo- 
ries held on this question. Let us now con- 
sider the New Testament position on the 
question of the subjects of Spirit baptism. 

Neither the Church apart from the 
individual, nor the individual apart from 
the Church, are the subjects of this bap- 
tism. Both the Church and the individual 
are included. The Church is the primary 
and fundamental subject; the individual, the 
incidental and necessary subject. This is 
evident when we remember that the Church 


140 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


is composed of individuals and that the 
whole could not be baptized without baptiz- 
ing each one — each individual member — of 
the parts. 

That this is the true position, seems evi- 
dent from a careful study of the Acts of the 
Apostles. The promise of Christ was made 
to the whole body and not to individuals. 
(Acts i, 3-5.) That it was so understood is 
evident. The whole Church obeyed by tar- 
rying in prayer until the promise was ful- 
filled. It was during this waiting period 
that the first church conference was held, 
and Mathias elected to take the place of 
Judas, so the church organization might be 
complete at the time of the divine over- 
whelming. When the Spirit came He filled 
all the house where they were sitting. As 
a result of this baptism, each individual 
member was filled with the Spirit. The 
same thing is true of the Samaritans. When 
the disciples heard of the work done in Sa- 
maria by Philip, they sent Peter and John 
to tie the new Samaritan Church onto the 
Church in Jerusalem. When Peter and 


141 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


John came, they prayed for the Samaritans 
and laid their hands upon them and they 
were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Here 
the congregation, and not the individual, is 
again emphasized. Peter and John are not 
dealing with individuals as such, but with 
the new church in Samaria. We find the 
same thing true in the case of the Gentiles. 
Peter, in giving a description of the events 
connected with the conversion of Cornelius, 
said, “As I began to speak, the Holy Ghost 
fell on them as on us at the beginning.” It 
was on the whole company that the Holy 
Ghost fell. Had it been simply upon Cor- 
nelius, we might say that he was prepared 
in heart for such a baptism, but when the 
whole company is baptized, we know that 
individual preparation is not the cause. We 
must look for the cause in the fact that God 
is organizing His Church among the Gen- 
tiles. 

There is also collateral proof of the cor- 
rectness of this position in the Epistles. In 
Hebrews, the writer in summing up the gen- 
eral conditions maintaining in every 


142 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


church — the normal condition of the aver- 
age Christian — mentions participancy in 
the Holy Ghost. (Heb. vi, 4.) This would 
not have been possible, since the writer in 
Hebrews is describing general conditions, 
unless the baptism of the Spirit was upon 
the Church, as a whole, and not upon iso- 
lated individuals. In Corinthians (I Cor. 
xii, 13) Paul tells us that by one Spirit we 
are all baptized into one body. This could 
not be if Spirit baptism was only upon in- 
dividuals, but since the Church, as a whole, 
is the subject of the baptism, Paul could use 
the word all. 

These things seem to show that the bap- 
tism of the Spirit was primarily and funda- 
mentally upon the Church. The Spirit com- 
ing, however, upon the whole Church, comes 
upon every member of the Church. This 
does not mean that there are absolutely no 
individuals baptized, it simply means that 
in God’s order of things, Spirit baptism is 
primarily upon the Church, and not upon 
individuals, as such. As to the nature of 
this divine annointing which the Church re- 


143 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


ceives, I have dealt at length in the chapter 
on “The Anointing of the Church.” 

The Time of Spirit Baptism. 

There are two predictive statements which 
must be taken into account in answering 
the question as to when this baptism takes 
place. One of the statements is by John the 
Baptist, the other by Jesus. One of them 
is contained in the Gospels, the other in the 
Acts. 

1. The predictive statement of John. 

When all the people had come out to his 
baptism and John looked out upon the mul- 
titude, he said: “I indeed baptize you with 
water, but there cometh one mightier than 
I, the latchet of whose shoes I am not w r orthy 
to unloose: He will baptize you with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire, whose fan is in 
His hand; He will thoroughly cleanse His 
threshing floor and gather the wheat into 
His garner, but the chaff He will burn up 
with unquenchable fire.” (Luke iii, 15-17.) 
You w T ill notice: 

(1.) This statement was made to a 
mixed mass of people. 


144 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


The multitude had gathered to hear this 
new preacher. They were reasoning among 
themselves as to whether he was the Christ 
or not. In New Testament interpretation, 
we must make a distinction between that 
which is spoken to the masses and that 
which is spoken to the elect. The baptism 
which John predicts is to come upon the 
masses of mankind, and in connection with 
a fiery baptism which does not find fulfill- 
ment in anything which transpired in the 
Acts of the Apostles. , 

(2.) The baptism which John predicted 
was a separating work. 

In connection with this baptism, there 
was the gathering together of the wheat and 
the burning of the chaff with unquenchable 
fire. Such a work could only take place at 
the second advent. 

When we put these ideas together it 
seems that the baptism predicted by John 
was an enveloping of mankind in the fiery 
embrace of a God who is said to be a con- 
suming fire; purifying what is to be saved 
and consuming what is to be destroyed. 


145 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


Peter, referring more particularly to the ma- 
terial world, voices the same sentiment in 
his second epistle. He tells us that the 
world, which was once baptized in water, 
shall be baptized in fire at the final coming 
of the Lord. (II Peter iii, 6-12). This rep- 
resentation is in entire harmony with the 
teaching of all the Old Testament prophets. 
They all, in one way or another, have de- 
clared that the Lord shall be revealed in 
fire at His final coming. We therefore con- 
clude that the baptism which John predicted 
had primary reference to the second coming 
of Christ as the time of its fulfillment. 

2. Let us now take the predictive state- 
ment of Christ. 

In the first chapter of Acts we have this 
statement: “And being assembled together 
with them, He charged them not to depart 
from Jerusalem, but to wait for the prom- 
ise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have 
heard of me. For John truly baptized with 
water, but ye shall be baptized with the 
Holy Ghost not many days hence.” You 
will notice: 


146 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


(1.) This statement is made to a select 
company. 

The speaker is the risen Savior who has 
not shown Himself, much less joined Him- 
self, to any one except His own followers. 
He is in the act of leaving these disciples 
of His. This is His last address. They 
have their commission. He now gives them 
to understand that there is to come upon 
them an exceptional manifestation of the 
Holy Spirit. 

This predictive statement of Christ is in 
marked contrast to what John the Baptist 
had said. John had spoken to the multi- 
tude, Christ speaks to the elect. John de- 
clared a two-fold baptism, Christ speaks 
only of the baptism of the Spirit. In con- 
nection with John’s statement there is the 
separation of the chaff from the wheat, in 
connection with the statement of Christ 
there is simply the bestowal of power for 
service. The predictive statement of John 
looks to the end of the world for its fulfill- 
ment, Christ’s prediction looks to the be- 


147 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


ginning of the Gospel dispensation for its 
fulfillment. 

(2.) The baptism predicted by Christ is 
specific. 

The predictive statement of Christ does 
not refer to a general baptism upon all flesh, 
but to a specific baptism upon a select com- 
pany. By referring to the original in the 
last clause of the fifth verse, you will find 
that the “ye” is emphatic, the pronoun be- 
ing expressed, and that the “not many days 
hence” is literally “not after many of these 
days.” It Tvould seem from this that Christ 
in referring to the predictive statement of 
John meant to teach His disciples that “the 
many” would be baptized “after many 
days,” or at the second advent as John had 
predicted, but that the select company — His 
disciples — were to have a baptism in the 
near future. 

(3.) This exceptional baptism was for a 
specific purpose. 

Christ was leaving His work in a manner 
but begun. The world was yet unsaved. This 
was the supreme thing in the plan of re- 


148 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


demption. He is now promising this com- 
pany of believers, these who are to take up 
the work where He had laid it down, that 
they shall have power for their task. They 
were to witness of His resurrection and tes- 
tify to His second coming. For this they 
needed special power. The Church which 
He had planted in the world must be ac- 
credited before the eyes of humanity. There 
must be an earnest of the fuller glory of the 
completed kingdom. And so the baptism 
received by the Church on the day of Pente- 
cost was but an earnest and attestation of 
the more comprehensive baptism which was 
to come “after many days.” 

The prediction of Jesus concerning the 
special baptism upon the selected company 
was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. The 
fiery potency filled the room where the 
Church was assembled. They were envel- 
oped in it, and as a result of this envelop- 
ment, were all filled with the Spirit. This 
infilling gave them power. Jerusalem was 
filled with their teaching. Hypocrites fell 
dead at their feet. The sick were healed. 


149 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


The dead were raised. Prisons were opened 
by unseen hands. Financial and economic 
methods were reversed and an earnest was 
given of a state of things of which the pres- 
ent age knows scarcely nothing, but of which 
the coming age shall be the glad fulfillment. 
All this was interpreted by the apostles as 
a witnessing to the coming of the Lord with 
His overwhelming baptism of the Holy 
Ghost and of fire. Peter so interprets it: 
“Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, 
that your sins may be blotted out, when the 
times of refreshing shall come from the pres- 
ence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus 
Christ, which before was preached unto you : 
whom the heaven must receive until the 
time of restitution of all things, which God 
hath spoken by the mouth of His holy proph- 
ets since the world began.” (Acts iii, 19- 
21 .) 

This realistic presence manifest on the 
day of Pentecost was not a thing unknown 
to the Jewish people. There had been such 
a manifestation at each step in the march of 
their civic and religious progress through 


150 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


all the ages of the past. The pillar of 
cloud and of fire which led them through 
all the wilderness wanderings, the audible 
voice from the top of Mount Sinai, the she- 
kinah which burned in the most holy place 
in the Tabernacle and the Temple were but 
different manifestations of the supernat- 
ural and divine presence. And so when this 
divine manifestation came on Pentecost 
those who were not blinded by prejudice 
were quick to realize that God was in the 
movement and that this was the way in 
which He was accrediting the Church as His 
divinely established institution and these 
people as His commissioned disciples. 

From this comparison of these two pre- 
dictive statements, one from John, the other 
from Christ, and a careful study of the New 
Testament baptism as recorded in the Acts 
of the Apostles, I believe that we are justi- 
fied in saying that the baptism of the Holy 
Ghost and of fire, which all the prophets 
have foretold, will come only at the second 
coming of Christ. This will be the supreme 
and complete overwhelming of the glory 


151 


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Church in the Holy Spirit and the supreme 
and complete overwhelming of the forces of 
wickedness in the flames of God’s avenging 
w r rath. These two baptisms will include all 
flesh. But there is an exceptional, anticipa- 
tory, witnessing baptism which came in 
apostolic days. This is the baptism pre- 
dicted by Christ and recorded in Acts. This 
baptism may come at any time in the history 
of the Church. 

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a tre- 
mendous fact in the history of Christianity. 
The touch of the Holy Spirit to-day is a tre- 
mendous power in the lives of God’s people. 
Let us be thankful for the knowledge of the 
Spirit which He has given us, but let us not 
think of ourselves more highly than we 
ought to think, nor employ biblical terms 
without weighing their true significance. 
Christianity is not simply a system of eth- 
ics. It is a life. It involves what we may 
call a comprehensive, an age-abiding, shek- 
inah-like potency, both within us now and 
in which we are to live and move and have 
our being eternally. We may not live in 


152 


THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY GHOST. 


that age when God in His sovereign good- 
ness sees fit to baptize His Church in the 
Holy Spirit, yet let us be assured that with- 
out a touch of the Holy Spirit, without 
some realistic experience of His presence 
within, we are poor exponents of Him who 
baptizes with the Holy Ghost and with fire. 



153 


X. 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRIS- 
TIAN LIFE. 

Up to this point we have concerned our- 
selves with the person and dispensational 
work of the Spirit. We now take up his 
work as related to the individual. His 
mission in the world is to apply the redemp- 
tive work of Christ to the hearts and lives 
of men. He comes and interposes his gra- 
cious aid in rescuing us from the ignorance 
and misery of sin, and by a mysterious pro- 
cess within, changes the governing disposi- 
tion of our minds so that we love and serve 
God. The foundation of all obedience is 
laid in the Spirit’s influence upon the heart 
and soul, whereby men become entirely dif- 
ferent from what they were, and are proper- 
ly denominated “New Creatures.” 

The Basis for this New Life. 

The plan which God has for man’s salva- 
tion is of great dimensions every way. All 


154 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 


nations, kindreds, tribes and tongues are 
included within the ample fold of its all- 
comprehending sufficiency. The ages to 
come and the ages past are both to rejoice 
in the blessings which it confers. The bene- 
fits of the redemptive work of Christ can be 
no less than the magnitude of the person 
who wrought out this redemption. He, who 
wrapped His arms around the river of life 
at its flood-tide and poured all its surging 
torrents into His own being that He might 
taste life and death for every man, could 
not possibly be in the full reach of His 
influence less than world-wide. He died 
for the race. His cross is the sign of res- 
cue for the whole world. One arm of it 
pointed backward and stretched itself 
through all the valleys and over all the 
mountain ranges of human sin and suffer- 
ing until it reached the Garden of Eden; 
the other arm of that cross pointed forward 
to the future and stretched itself through 
all the fitful shadows of the changing times 
and tides of men until it reached the pearly 
gates of the New Jerusalem. Over all this 


155 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


stretch of years, from Eden to Glory, no 
period of time is left out of the infinite sac- 
rifice of Christ for sin. No man is left out: 
the whole of Europe and Asia and Africa 
and America, every Malay and Chinaman 
and Hindoo and Tartar and Tagal, as well 
as every Caucasian shares in the infinite 
sacrifice of Christ. Kneeling at that cross, 
every son of earth may have his sins for- 
given and find profound relief. 

This work of redemption would, however, 
be of little avail were there not provision 
made for its application. Man, by nature, 
knoweth not God. The carnal mind is en- 
mity against God, is not subject to His law, 
neither indeed can be. Apart from the en- 
lightening influence of the Holy Spirit, the 
soul of man is so blinded and stupified by 
sin that it will not turn unto God. Hence 
the necessity of the work of the Holy Spirit. 
He is the author of all those internal opera- 
tions of the soul which are requisite for the 
recovery of our fallen and sinful race. 


156 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 

The Need of the New Life. 

No one who is acquainted with the record 
will deny that a great deal is said concern- 
ing the universal necessity for such a 
change. This necessity is deep-seated in the 
constitution of the race. The root of all sin 
is traceable back to the Garden of Eden. 
Our first parents, being seduced by the sub- 
tlety of Satan, sinned in eating the forbid- 
den fruit. By this sin they fell from their 
original state of righteousness and became 
dead in sin. They being the root of all man- 
kind, the guilt of this sin was imputed and 
the seeds of it imparted to all the race. We 
are not the products of to-day nor of yes- 
terday; we are the products of sixty centu- 
ries ago. To live did not begin with us when 
we first drew the breath of life, but to live 
began with us when God breathed into 
man’s nostrils the breath of life and man 
became a living soul. Cast from out this 
sea of being, all living men inherit alike the 
vices and the virtues of their ancestors. The 
individual man is thrown to the surface of 
being a mere bundle of possibilities, powers, 
tendencies and emotions gathered from out 


157 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


the mysterious sea of human life which fills 
up the centuries of the past. Like the arrow 
shot from the bow, which is dependent in 
its flight upon the direction and velocity 
which it receives from the bow-string, so is 
the soul dependent in its transit through 
life upon the capacity, the tendency, the mor- 
al quality given to it while yet it lay upon 
the bow-string of potential being. Since hu- 
man life has been turned away from the 
course which leads towards God and right, 
and is sweeping out through the spheres of 
sin and transgression, it is absolutely neces- 
sary that some external force be brought to 
bear upon it or else it will go on away from 
God forever. 

The sin handed down to us by our parents 
is, as John Wesley says, “the corruption of 
the nature of every man, whereby that man 
is in his own nature inclined to evil, so that 
the flesh lusteth contrary to the spirit.” We 
sometimes call this original sin, in contra- 
distinction to actual sin. Original sin dif- 
fers from actual sin in this: original sin is 
what a man is, actual sin is what a man be- 


158 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 


comes. The one has to do with the moral 
quality of the soul, the other has to do with 
the conduct. The one is the root, the other 
the fruit. On account of original sin, a man 
is born on the outside of the kingdom of 
heaven; on account of actual sin, a man is 
made subject to punishment. Original ^in 
gives bias towards evil, actual sin fixes the 
will in the practice of evil. By the one we 
are thrown out of correspondence with God, 
by the other we become openly rebellious 
towards God. By the one we become liable 
to condemnation, by the other we become 
worthy of condemnation. The one gives 
damnability, the other damnation. This in- 
herited propensity gives to the nature a 
strong and continued disposition towards 
evil. “The carnal mind is enmity against 
God, is not subject to His law neither in- 
deed can be.” This makes the work of the 
Holy Spirit in regeneration an absolute ne- 
cessity. 

The Nature of the New Life. 

The passages which describe the nature 
159 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


of the change wrought in the implantation 
of this new life are very emphatic. Chris- 
tians are said to be “regenerated,” “begotten 
again,” and “born of God” (Titus iii, 5), 
all of which and similar expressions imply, 
that they remain not the same as other men, 
as to the state of their minds, but that 
through a divine influence they receive a 
new nature and enter into a new life. From 
this point, which forms with them a critical 
era, commences their religious character, 
their spiritual existence. By the first, or 
natural birth, they come into the world and 
become a part of the family of man ; by re- 
generation, or spiritual birth, they come into 
the kingdom of heaven and become one in 
the family of the redeemed. Such a differ- 
ent constitution of things is produced with- 
in them by the entrance of this new life that 
they may be said to enter a new world. It 
is only then that they begin to live spirit- 
ually and are received into the number of 
the children of God and become heirs of 
everlasting life. 

This inner change is a renewal. It is that 


160 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 


act of the Holy Spirit by which the govern- 
ing disposition of the soul is made holy, and 
by which, through the truth as a means, the 
first holy exercise of this disposition is se- 
cured. This change affects the whole being. 
All the faculties of the mind receive a new 
direction, and begin to answer a far higher 
purpose than they had done before. Incli- 
nations, hopes and fears, which were once 
carnal, now give place for those which are 
pure. This is an alteration so entire and 
glorious that it is called a “new creation.” 

When viewed from the human side, this 
change is called conversion. There is a 
very close relation subsisting between the 
inner life and the outer manifestation of it. 
Regeneration is the inner change, conver- 
sion is the outer manifestation. In regen- 
eration the governing disposition of the soul 
is affected; in conversion this changed dis- 
position manifests itself in the conduct and 
character. In regeneration God turns the 
soul towards Himself ; in conversion the soul 
turns of itself towards God. 


161 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


The Author of the New Life. 

The Scriptures clearly teach that, through 
the successive ages of the world, the minds 
of men have been quickened and illumi- 
nated by the agency of the Holy Spirit. 
This teaching, however, becomes more dis- 
tinct in the New Testament. In almost 
every page our attention is directed to the 
necessity of a divine influence for the reno- 
vation of the soul. To be “born again,” and 
to be “born of the Spirit,” and to be “born 
of God,” are in the Scriptures continuously 
used as synoymous terms. 

We do not, however, in ascribing to the 
Holy Spirit the authorship of this new life, 
affirm that the Divine Spirit accomplishes 
His work without any accompanying instru- 
mentality. We simply set forth the fact 
that the power which produces this new life 
is of God, and that, although conjoined with 
the use of means, there is a direct operation 
of this power on the heart of the sinner 
which changes his moral character. The 
Spirit uses instrumentalities — the written 


162 


THE BEGINNING OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 


Word, the spoken Word in Gospel, song, 
prayer, or sermon, the lives of friends and 
loved ones — these and other things are used 
by the Spirit to produce the change of mind 
in the sinner. But the Holy Spirit comes in 
contact, not simply with the instrument, 
but with the soul. To all moral, and espe- 
cially to all religious truth, there is an in- 
ward unsusceptibility, arising from the per- 
versity of the affections and will, which must 
be removed before the soul can perceive or 
be moved by the truth. Hence the Spirit 
must deal directly with the soul. At Jeri- 
cho, the force was not applied to the ram’s 
horns, but to the walls. When Jesus healed 
the blind man, His power was applied not 
to the spittle, but to the eyes. The impres- 
sion is prepared, not by heating the seal, 
but by softening the wax. So God’s power 
acts, not upon the truth, but upon the sin- 
ner. 

Let us not think, however, that the influ- 
ence of the Spirit upon the soul renders un- 
necessary our obedience to the forms of re- 
ligion. In this age of loose views and in- 


163 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


difference to the established forms it is 
necessary to emphasize the fact that all the 
work of the Holy Spirit crystallizes in the 
formation of the body of the redeemed, which 
is the bride of Christ. There are certain 
forms, connected with the organic kingdom 
of Christ, which are essential to a full decla- 
ration of the truths of the Gospel — the liv- 
ing emblems of a living Gospel. I know 
that some tell us that they seek a spiritual 
religion. But is spirituality and obedience 
antagonistic? Surely not. Every divine 
symbol only strengthens spirituality. Obe- 
dience to every command only deepens re- 
ligious experience. Then remember that 
every means of grace are but so many in- 
strumentalities by which spiritual influence 
is to be sought, divine blessings invoked, 
worldliness overcome, and salvation tri- 
umphantly achieved. 


164 


XI. 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 

In the redemptive economy of God there 
is a two-fold work; a work for man and a 
work in man. The work for man is a work 
of salvation, the work in man is a work of 
preparation for life and for service. By 
the one a right relation between God and 
man is established, by the other the fruit 
of the established order is secured. By the 
former the condemned sinner is received 
into a state of grace, by the latter the par- 
doned sinner is associated with the life of 
God. The one makes him safe. The other 
makes him sound. 

Let me illustrate, yonder is a weather- 
beaten craft drifting upon the bosom of an 
unfriendly sea. The winds and waves have 
beat upon it until it is in a sinking condi- 
tion. The mast is gone, the stearing gear 
is torn away and there are great seams in 
the side. Just then a friendly craft comes 
along and takes the sinking vessel in tow 
and carries it into the harbor. It is an- 
chored at the dock. It is safe but it is not 
sound. It is put into the dry dock and the 


165 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


workmen begin. They close up the seams, 
reset the stearing gear, and replace the 
mast. At last the vessel is fitted for service. 
It is made sound as well as safe. This two- 
fold work is the work which Christ does for 
us in the economy of grace. We were drift- 
ing upon the bosom of an unfriendly sea. 
Sin and Satan had done their work. We 
were broken and bruised and in a sinking 
condition. Just then the divine Christ came 
along and kindly took us in tow. We were 
carried into the harbor and anchored safely 
at the dock. We were safe, but not sound. 
To carry out the figure, we then went into 
dry dock and the Divine Workman began 
the work of preparation for sea service. It 
is the purpose of the economy of grace to 
make us both safe and sound. The work of 
the Holy Spirit for us, in applying the re- 
demptive work of Christ to our needs, makes 
us safe; the work of the Holy Spirit in us, 
realizing what has been done for us by 
Christ, makes us sound. 

The Natural Craving of the Redeemed Soul. 

This infilling satisfies the natural crav- 
ings of the redeemed soul. Oh, this sensa- 
tion of want; this hatred of stagnation; this 


166 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


desire to flee from oneself; this craving for 
an unknown something out of our reach; 
this longing for enlargement of heart — all 
this is but the going out of the soul after 
God. Have you never felt it? Have you 
never felt that your life is in many respects 
a failure? That your words are powerless, 
that your efforts fall fruitless, and that your 
work for the Master is imperfet? Do you 
not feel sometimes that your Christian ex- 
perience is but the broken fragments of 
what it ought to be? That you have not the 
power you ought to have, and that you are 
not conscious of the Savior’s presence with- 
in, like His followers ought to be? That 
you are up and down ; it is hill-top and val- 
ley, darkness and night, doubt and faith, 
hope and despair? Why this feeling of in- 
completeness? There is but one answer, 
and that is you need this fullness of the 
Spirit. 

This need of infilling is manifested in a 
sufficient number of ways to be known to 
us if we will but stop and examine our 
hearts. 

1. It is manifested by indifference to- 
wards the work and progress of the king- 
dom. 

Oh, this dearth, this inactivity, this stag- 


167 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


nation, this death. There are hundreds of 
members in all of our churches who do 
nothing for the advancement of the Mas- 
ter’s kingdom. Empty pews speak in sol- 
emn sadness of absent ones who are indif- 
ferent to the services of the sanctuary, and 
depleted treasuries tell the tale of uncon- 
cern about the Master’s business. Why is 
this? Have these thousands been mistaken? 
Are they yet in the gall of bitterness and 
the bonds of iniquity? That may be true 
with many, but with the great host of in- 
different ones there are thousands who can 
“read their titles clear to mansions in the 
skies.” The trouble with these is that they 
have been saved and made safe, but they 
have never been prepared for service. They 
need the indwelling Spirit of God. 

2. It manifests itself by the unrest which 
pervades the soul of the Christian. 

Jesus said, “Peace I leave with you, my 
peace I give unto you.” Have you this 
peace? Is your soul at rest? Are you bask- 
ing in the sunshine of the Savior’s presence? 
When you draw aside from the hum and 
bustle of active life and go into the quiet 
hush of the secret place can you hear the 
still, small voice of the Master encourag- 
ing, instructing, directing? If not, why 


168 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 

not? There is but one answer, you need 
the divine infilling. 

On the shores of Lake Huron one sum- 
mer day, a little group was standing await- 
ing the arrival of a steamer. All about was 
a babble of voices. Presently one of the 
clerks said, “Come into the fish house.” 
There was a small warehouse for storing 
fish. Several of them stepped in. He shut 
the door and said, “listen.” As they stood 
they could plainly hear the sound of the ap- 
proaching steamer. They went out to the 
wharf where the people were talking, but 
there the sound was inaudible. They went 
again into the fish-house and again they 
heard it. They were then in the place of 
stillness. Oh what a lesson! What an il- 
lustration for our lives as Christians ! When 
we get alone in the secret place with God 
where there is peace, we can hear the voice 
of God, but when our souls are filled with 
the cares of the world and our lives are cast 
in the hubbub and distractions of life the 
Spirit is excluded. 

3. It manifests itself again by constant 
failure at some one point. 

Are you constantly failing? Is there a 
breakdown in your resolutions and that al- 
ways at the same point? Is it a loss of 


169 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


temper, an unruly tongue, an unforgiving 
spirit? Is it the neglect of duty? What- 
ever it may be, whenever the mainspring of 
your will gives way at the same place again 
and again you may know that what you 
need is the fullness of the Spirit of God. 

The Meaning of this Infilling, 

There are four progressive steps in the 
work of the Holy Spirit in the believer. We 
have first of all, life from the Spirit , which 
is the implantation within the soul of spir- 
itual life. This we call regeneration. It is 
the first act of the Spirit within us. Then 
we have the divine enduement for life and 
for service. This is the coming of the Spirit 
into the prepared house to occupy it for the 
glory of God. After the Spirit comes into 
the soul then we have progress in holiness 
which we call sanctification. This is the 
process of eradication by which the old man 
is eliminated so that the New Man may 
find room for development. With this de- 
velopment in holiness there is the invest- 
ment of power. The Spirit brings power. 
But this power is conditioned upon the 
scope given to the Spirit. In the progres- 
sive work of the Spirit as the soul becomes 


170 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


more and more the slave of Jesus Christ, 
through the operation of the Spirit within, 
this investment of power becomes more and 
more nearly complete. 

Each one of these operations is a crisis 
and a process. Regeneration is a crisis. It 
is also a process. In one moment of time 
we are born into the kingdom, but through 
all the coming years this regeneration — 
this new birth — is being wrought out into 
the actuality of a living Christian charac- 
ter. It is so with sanctification. We take 
a posture towards God in a moment; this 
forms a crisis in our lives, but that posture 
must be applied all along the line; our 
whole characters must be subjected to the 
divine relation. This is a process. So is it 
with respect to infilling. There is a mo- 
ment in which the Spirit comes first into our 
lives. Oh what a moment is that! That 
moment constitutes a crisis. But this crisis 
of the indwelling presence must be worked 
out all along the line of our character, and 
hence we have also a process. Thus the in- 
filled life is both a crisis and a process. It 
is a crisis with reference to the initial com- 
ing of the Spirit into the heart and life; it 
is a process with reference to His continued 
operations. We find this illustrated in 


171 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


nature. “In the beginning” we are told 
“God created the heavens and the earth.” 
That was a crisis in the work of creation. 
But the crisis was immediately transformed 
into a process, for God continued the crea- 
tive activity. 

It is because of the lack of discrimination 
just here that many have misunderstood the 
doctrine of the infilled life. From the very 
nature of the case the initial coming of the 
Spirit into the soul must be a crisis. There 
must be one moment when He is not a resi- 
dent of the soul and the next moment when 
He is. A thing cannot be and not be at the 
same time. And so the soul cannot be in- 
dwelt and not indwelt by the Spirit at the 
same time. 

The Covenant Promise. 

This indwelling is the covenant promise. 
“Behold I send the promise of my Father 
upon you.” (Luke xxiv:49.) In Hebrews 
Paul tells us that Christ is the mediator of 
a better covenant than that of Moses, and 
that it is established upon better promises. 
( Heb. viii, 6 ) . The nature of this new cove- 
nant He outlines as follows: 

“I will put my laws into their mind, and 
write them in their hearts; and I will be 


172 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


to them a God and they shall be to me a 
people.” (Heb. viii, 10). The distinctive 
promise made in this new covenant is that 
God will indwell His people. This is the 
covenant promise of the New Testament. 
“And I will pray the Father, and He will 
give you another Comforter, that He may 
abide in you forever; even the Spirit of 
truth, whom the world cannot receive be- 
cause it seeth Him not neither knoweth 
Him; but ye know Him for He dwelleth 
with you and shall be in you.” (John xiv, 
16-17). “But the Comforter whom the 
Father will send in my name, He shall teach 
you all things and bring all things to your 
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto 
you.” (John xiv, 26). Here is the promise 
of the Christ, and the promise of the Father. 
Jesus, just before He left the world, com- 
manded His disciples not to depart from 
Jerusalem, “but to wait for the promise of 
the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard 
of me.” (Acts i, 4). The disciples tarried 
and on the day of Pentecost they received 
the promise. And what was that promise in 
its fulfillment? “And they were all filled 
with the Holy Ghost.” (Acts ii, 4). This 
condition is the result of what Peter calls a 
baptism (Acts xi:15-16) ; and in answer to 


173 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


the question of the convicted multitude he 
says : “Repent and be baptized every one of 
you for the remission of sins, and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the 
promise is unto you and to your children, 
and to all that are afar off, even as many as 
the Lord our God shall call.” (Acts ii, 
38-39). This indwelling Spirit is the cove- 
nant promise. It is evident that Peter un- 
derstood it that way from the explanation 
which he gave of the Pentecostal outpour- 
ing: “This Jesus,” says he, hath God raised 
up, whereof we are witnesses. Therefore, 
being by the right hand of God exalted, and 
having received of the Father the promise of 
the Holy Ghost, He hath shed forth this 
which you now see and hear.” (Acts ii, 
32-33.) 


A Command of God. 

Lest some one should think that it is op- 
tional with the believer whether he be filled 
with the Spirit or not, I call your attention 
to the fact that this is a command of God. 

In Ephesians v, 18, Paul says, “Be not 
drunk with wine wherein is excess but be 
filled with the Spirit.” In this passage 
there is a double command. 

A negative, “Be not drunk with wine.” 


174 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


A positive, “ Be ye filled with the Spirit.” 

The positive command is just as binding 
as the negative. What was true then is true 
now. The drunkards of Ephesus were to 
find a cure in the joys of the Holy Ghost. 
There is a deep excitement and refreshment, 
a joy that transcends human thought in the 
love of God shed abroad in the heart. One 
can glory in tribulation and laugh in the 
face of death when the strong wine of God’s 
consolation is poured into the soul. Paul 
is commanding the Ephesians to look to this 
strong source of power for consolation and 
help. Is it a sin for a believer to-day to be 
drunk with wine? And is it a virtue to 
disobey the other part of this injunction 
which commands us to be filled with the 
Spirit? The two commands are hinged to- 
gether. If it is a sin for a Christian to be 
drunk with wine, it certainly cannot be a 
virtue for a Christian not to be filled with 
the Holy Spirit. 

Notice the breadth of this command. The 
word “filled” is a large word. It means to 
have the Spirit pervading with His holy and 
glorious presence every part of our being; 
controlling every purpose, every affection, 
every thought, every fancy, every action and 
every utterance. Since the Holy Spirit is 


175 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


the element of the believer’s life, surround- 
ing, while it penetrates his nature, it is to 
be the atmosphere which he is to breathe, 
the ocean in which he is to be immersed. 
As the flood fills up the river banks, as the 
drunkard is filled with wine that he drains 
without limit, so the Apostle would have 
his readers yield themselves to the tide of 
the Spirit’s coming, and steep their natures 
in His influence. 

An Ever-Present Experience. 

The Greek imperative, moreover, is pres- 
ent and describes this influence as ever go- 
ing forth from the Spirit. Literally trans- 
lated, it would read: “Be ye filling in the 
Spirit.” There is to be a continual replen- 
ishment. Paul has before prayed that they 
might “Be filled unto all the fullness of God 
(Eph. iii, 19) ; and has bidden them to 
grow” to the measure of the stature of the 
fullness of Christ (Eph. iv, 4) and the habi- 
tation of God.” (Eph. ii, 21). So I get 
this thought that the process of filling must 
be constant and continual. Be continually 
getting filled. Yesterday’s fullness will not 
suffice for to-day. Each day must have a 
fullness of its own, and each new filling to 
be larger than the last. 


176 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


Christ stood on the last day, that great 
day of the feast, and cried, saying, “If any 
man thirst let him come unto me and drink. 
He that believeth on me, as the Scripture 
has said, out of him shall flow rivers of liv- 
ing water. But this spake He of the Spirit 
which they that believed on Him were to re- 
ceive; for the Spirit was not yet given; be- 
cause Jesus was not yet glorified.” (John 
vii, 37 -39 ) . Here Christ contemplates Him- 
self as the river at which we drink, and 
then He transforms our lives into rivers of 
which other people drink. Perhaps you 
have seen a river springing from the melt- 
ing snows of the uplands and pouring itself 
down into some great lagoon or lake whose 
pellucid waters have reflected the blue sky 
by day and the stars by night, and out of 
w T hich rivers have emanated, that have car- 
ried to the lowland valleys all the glorious 
force of water which had descended from the 
hills; so Jesus Christ is the great lake into 
which the Godhead pours itself, and out of 
which we, as rivers, united with Him by 
living faith, may drain His stores without 
exhausting them. The divine person 
through whom all this is made possible in 
us is the Holy Spirit whom Jesus has prom- 
ised to them that obey Him. 


177 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


You will notice that it is in the Spirit 
that we are to be filled. The sphere of the 
believer’s life is the Spirit, and he must let 
this Spirit in which he is and in whom he 
lives get into him and fill him. If we are 
believers in Christ, we are in the Spirit. He 
surrounds us with His glorious and holy 
presence, but He may not be in us in any 
very large measure. Egypt has the Nile, 
but it is not simply the possession of the 
Nile that saves Egypt from being a waste 
of barren sand, it is the overflowing of the 
Nile that makes Egypt a fertile valley. It 
is not the possession of the Spirit that gives 
us power, but the overflowing of the Spirit. 

If you should ever visit the Freidburg 
Cathedral you will notice there the old or- 
gan which was presided over by one man for 
many years, and when his hands had lost 
their cunning and he could not play, they 
gave him the charge of the organ. One day 
there came a stranger to visit the Cathedral 
and when he saw the organ he asked for the 
privilege of testing its tone. This was re- 
fused by the old organist, who said that no 
one’s hands but his and the new organist’s 
of the present day ever touched it. “But,” 
said the stranger, “I myself am an organist, 
and I shall be greatly pleased if I may touch 


178 


THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE. 


the keys of this celebrated instrument.” 
After much persuasion he allowed him to 
get on the organ bench. His fingers had no 
sooner touched the keys than the building 
was filled with melody. He played on and 
on, and then slipped from the bench. The 
old man said to him: “What might your 
name be?” The answer was: “My name is 
Felix Mendelssohn.” And until the day of 
his death the old organist used to say : “And 
I all but missed the chance of hearing Men- 
delssohn play.” 

But there is a better than Felix Mendels- 
sohn here at this present time — the Spirit 
of God who reveals Jesus Christ. He can 
touch our lives and make them sound out 
peace, and touch them again and make them 
ring out joy, and every day of every year 
will be but one sweet song, if He controls 
us. 


179 


XII. 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE. 

It was a sad day for humanity when sin 
entered the world. Righteousness then took 
its departure, Satan became the prince of 
this world and God withdrew from His for- 
mer relationship with man. Then followed 
the midnight, the long and anxious watch- 
ing through the centuries, the ceaseless 
sweep and ever rising tides of sin, stretch- 
ing from the Eden tragedy to the Bethle- 
hem birth. That was the dark period of 
the world’s history lit up with only a gleam 
now and then. But this condition was not 
to last. It was not the purpose of God to 
leave man without help. The divine One 
is the complement of man’s being. With- 
out this heavenly complement man can 
never know completeness. God hath de- 
creed that in the final reach of his pur- 
poses the original, and even a closer rela- 
tion between man and Himself shall be 
established. Every believer is to become 
the temple of the Holy Spirit. God is to 
dwell in the hearts and lives of all his 
children. This indwelling — God in the daily 
life — is the re-establishment of God’s orig- 
inal relation towards man. 


180 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


The Supreme Desire . 

In every age of the world it has been the 
desire of God’s people to have God in their 
daily lives. Perhaps the ancient hopes and 
expectations of struggling Israel are best 
expressed in the Psalms. It is here that the 
national heart-beat is felt. The writers, 
under the inspiration of the Spirit, have 
gathered together the throbbing thoughts 
of a God-seeking people and have cast them 
into the poetry of the times. Thus crystal- 
lized they have come down to us and are to- 
day the inspired tones in the music of a past 
age which sought God as its key-note. Oh, 
how close we are brought to God; how 
close God is brought to us in these inspired 
productions! Listen to the strains of this 
heavenly rhapsody, “The heavens declare the 
glory of God, the firmament showeth His 
handiwork ;” each rising sun is but the mon- 
itor of His presence. “The Lord is my shep- 
herd, I shall not want; even though I walk 
through the valley of the shadow of death, 
I shall fear no evil, for thou art with me, 
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. 
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me 
all the days of my life and I shall dwell in 
the house of the Lord forever.” This is 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


the climax in the effort of this ancient peo- 
ple to express the closeness of relation to 
Jehovah God which their souls earnestly 
sought and craved. 

In the New Testament this same desire 
is found. There is a sacredness about the 
relation which Christ maintained with His 
disciples. Oh, how His watchful eye is ever 
about them! His one great thought and 
purpose seems to be to tie them onto Him- 
self. “If ye believe in God, believe also in 
Me. In my Father’s house are many man- 
sions. I go to prepare a place for you, and 
if I go I will come again and take you unto 
myself, that where I am there ye may be 
also.” What an earnest of the future this 
statement of the Christ is ! The very heart 
of it all is our relation to Him. 

Perhaps no one of the Apostles has so 
expressed in words the yearning of the true 
believer’s heart after God as has Paul. This 
yearning is expressed towards those whom 
He has led into the kingdom. It is the 
thought of His heart crystallized into an out- 
burst of devotional eloquence ; it is the bur- 
den of His soul borne upon the wings of 
words to a throne of redeeming grace. He 
is continually letting the churches which 
He has established know how deeply He is 


182 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


interested in them, but His prayer for the 
Ephesians is the grandest He ever uttered. 
It is as if He had said : “Oh, Father 
Almighty, from whom every family in 
heaven and on earth is named, before Thee 
I bow and beseech that, according to the 
riches of Thy glory, Thou wilt grant to 
strengthen these dear Ephesian brethren 
with power in the inward man through Thy 
Spirit. Oh Lord Jesus come and reign in 
their hearts by faith. Grant that they may 
be rooted and grounded in love ; and may be 
able to comprehend the breadth and height 
and depth of the riches of grace in Christ 
Jesus our Lord. Oh merciful Father lead 
them to know the love of Christ which pas- 
seth knowledge; and fill them with all Thy 
divine fullness.” (Eph. 3:14-19.) 

This prayer, while expressed for others, 
is, nevertheless, the cry of every heart that 
has come under the spell of the power of 
Christ. It is the cry of our hearts to-day. 
Oh Lord let me know Thee, the great three 
in One, and my poor heart shall be satis- 
fied. 

Strength to the Inner-Man. 

Let us not forget that God is in the daily 
life of every man. We cannot get away 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


from His presence. Around and about, 
within and without, God is. But He is in the 
daily life of the sinner of His own choosing 
and not of the sinner’s choosing. If the sin- 
ner had his way he would eliminate God, 
but he cannot. God is in his life as an 
avenging conscience, a monitor of good that 
disturbs the sinner’s peace. He is in the 
sinner’s life as a detective spying out all the 
sinner’s sins and will stand before the 
Judgment as a witness to the justness of the 
sinner’s condemnation. 

With the believer it is different. God 
comes into the believer’s life to strengthen 
and to keep. We are strengthened with 
might by His Spirit in the inner-man. 
Here is where we need strength most of all. 
The inner-man is the real man. We do not 
have to go into the maze of psychology to 
appreciate this. There is within everyone 
of us a person whom we have never intro- 
duced to the world, and into whose confi- 
dence we neyer take our most intimate 
friend. That person is our real self. That 
person, back there in the throne room of the 
soul, holds the helm of our being. He is 
the one that needs strength. 

We need this inner-man strengthened so 
that we may be able to stand against the 


184 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


polluting influences of sin. Who can pass 
through this world without becoming 
stained? We start out in the morning fresh 
and clean, but by and by as we catch a lull 
in the struggle, we look down upon our- 
selves and behold we are covered with dust. 
We are told that we cannot enter politics 
without becoming corrupt; that we cannot 
make a success in business without becom- 
ing foul with the slime of commercial evil; 
and that we cannot move in the social cir- 
cles of our times without getting our robes 
stained with the spots of impurity. Why 
is it so? It is because there is not strength 
enough in the inner-man to throw off this 
impurity and walk amid the befouled at- 
mosphere without danger. The physically 
strong man walks in the house of contagion 
with impunity. His strong physical nature 
throws off the bacteria of disease. So the 
spiritually strong man walks through this 
world and his strong vitality throws off the 
contagion of sin. A deep living sense 
of God is the true vitality of a living soul 
which quenches the poisonous fires of cor- 
ruption. The only thing that will save a 
man is strength in the inner-man. 

We need this strength also that we may 
be able to perform the duties of the Chris- 


185 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


tian life. The Christian’s life is positive 
and not negative. The one thing which 
strikes the reader with the most force in ihe 
study of the life of Christ is that he was not 
continually on the defensive. He was not 
always standing guard over his own virtue. 
He was always invading the lives of others. 
His character and love flowed out upon the 
world and kept back, more strongly than 
any wall of prudent caution could have 
done, the world from pressing in upon him. 
He labored so hard to make the world pure 
that he never had to try to keep himself 
pure. He did not spend his time trying not 
to do wrong. He was too full of earnest 
longing to do right. The positive force for 
good within him was an outrushing tide of 
righteousness. Then if we would be good, 
if we would keep ourselves unspotted from 
the world, if we would do service for our 
King, we must have strength in the inner- 
man. 


Christ Dwelling in the Heart. 

God in the daily life means strength in 
the inner-man because Christ dwells in the 
heart. This is the very essence of the Chris- 
tian religion. Christ is not only the rep- 
resentative of Christianity, but He is also 


186 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


the embodiment of it — He is its vital life 
and force. Every influence for good within 
us radiates from Him. 

What would it mean if we could always 
feel and be conscious of the indwelling pres- 
ence of the divine Christ? Do you think 
that we would be so eager to gain the treas- 
ure of this world? Methinks that if we 
could feel His presence within that the wan- 
ton, wandering wishes of this life would be 
like the birds which fly over our heads but 
dare not make their nests in our hair. 
Away would go each peevish craving, each 
pining ambition, each carking care. Though 
we should be brought to know the trials of 
poverty, and should be greatly tried, yet the 
Lord’s presence and sensible consolation 
would so sustain us that spiritually and in- 
wardly we would know neither hunger nor 
thirst. We would find such consolation in 
God that with or without this world’s goods 
we would live in wealth. A man’s life con- 
sisted not in the abundance of what he pos- 
sessed. Many a man who has in this world 
next to nothing that could be seen with 
eye s or handled with hands, has been a very 
millionaire for true wealth in possessing the 
kingdom of the Most High God. 

Would we be so easily led astray by the 


187 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


sin of this world if we could always feel the 
presence of the indwelling Christ? If we 
knew that Christ were looking into every 
transaction, what effect would it have? 
Could we do a little thing? Would it not 
lift us up to a degree of sweetness and puri- 
ty unknown before Then let us realize the 
indwelling Christ. 

“Abide in me, 1 pray, and I in Thee: 

From this good hour. Oh, leave me nevermore! 
Then shall the discord cease, the wound be healed. 
The lifelong bleeding of the soul be o’er. 

“Abide in me; o’er shadowed by thy love. 

Each half-formed purpose and dark thought of sin, 
Quench, e’er it rise, each selfish, low desire. 

And keep my soul as thine, calm and divine. 

“As some rare perfume in a vase of clay 
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own, 

So, when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul, 

All heaven’s sweetness is around it thrown. 

“Abide in me. There have been moments blest 
When I have heard Thy voice and felt Thy power; 
Then evil lost its grasp; and passion, hushed, 
Owned the divine enchantment of the hour. 

“These were but seasons beautiful and rare; 

Abide in me and they shall ever be; 

Fulfill at once Thy precept and my prayer; 

Come and abide in me, and I in Thee.” 

Stability of Love. 

Out of this blissful relation — God in the 
daily life — there grows stability of love. 


188 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


There is a love which is rooted and ground- 
ed ; it is not a passing sentiment, but a per- 
manent posture of the soul. You can get 
this love nowhere else, but at the feet of 
Jesus. 

This old world is not filled with love, but 
with hate and hardness of heart. Its at- 
mosphere only chills the affections and fills 
the soul with unholy desires. Study at the 
school of the world and you will be taught 
in the art of sordidness and perfected in the 
science of greed. All the holier sentiments 
of the soul will be crushed and the baser 
passions and powers developed. Go to 
Christ and you will find the heart of all 
love. When Christ dwells abidingly in the 
heart, love becomes the ground of the na- 
ture, the basis on which the thoughts and 
actions rest, the soil out of which every pur- 
pose grows. 

We cannot view His wondrous love with- 
out becoming transformed into the same 
character. Like begets like. His nature 
stirs our own when it comes in touch with 
us. It is true that the love of Christ is be- 
yond us, but we can imitate it; we can be 
drawn into relationship with it; we can be- 
come fixed in an attitude towards God and 
our fellows like unto His. We cannot de- 


189 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


scribe His love, nor delineate its features. 
He wrote it in characters of blood. Stand 
and watch the cross. Then if your eye is 
open and the heart is alive to His matchless 
gift you will behold the wondrous sight — 
the love that passeth knowledge. 

“Love strong as death — yea stronger; 

Love mightier than the grave; 

Love broad as earth and longer 
Than ocean’s widest wave. 

This is the love that sought us, 

This is the love that bought us. 

This is the love that brought us 
To gladdest day from saddest night. 

From deepest shame to glory bright, 

From depths of death to life’s fair height, 

From darkness to the joys of light.” 

We must have love to conquer the world. 
Christ loved the world and founded His 
kingdom upon love, and to-day kings are 
bowing before the march of His truth and 
the power of His name. He bids us stoop 
and drink from the fountain of His eternal 
love. It is through this love that we shall 
conquer. When we have God in the daily 
life our lives become permeated with the 
very atmosphere of His love. 

This love is the very perfection of Chris- 
tian character. Paul tells us that though 
we have the gift of tongues and understand 
all mysteries; and though we have all faith 


190 


GOD IN THE DAILY LIFE 


so as to remove mountains, and though we 
have all charity even to the giving of all 
our goods to feed the poor; and though we 
are so rooted and grounded in our belief 
that we will give our bodies to be burned; 
and yet if w r e have not love it will profit us 
nothing. The supreme command is : “Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart.” 

When a rosebud is formed, if the soil is 
soft and the sky is genial, it is not long be- 
fore it bursts; for the life within it is so 
abundant that it cannot long contain it all, 
but in blossoming brightness it must needs 
let forth its joy. If it should refuse to blos- 
som it would quickly rot at heart and per- 
ish. 

“The rose blooms not for itself at all; 

Its joy is the joy it richly diffuses; 

Of beauty and balm it is prodigal, 

And it lives in the life it freely loses; 

No choice for fee rose, but glory or doom, 

To exhale or smother, to wither or bloom. 

To deny is to die.” 

So is it with the Christian. His life is 
just love with its petals fully spread, devel- 
oping itself, and making this a happier 
world. The religion which imagines it is 
divine, when it loves not, is not piety, but 
a poor mildewed theology. Oh Lord, open 


191 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


Thou the flood-gates of heaven and irrigate 
our souls with the abounding fullness of 
Thy love. God in the daily life is a source 
of ever-increasing love. 

* The Abiding Presence. 

There are many results growing out of 
the blissful relation which must exist when 
God is in the daily life, but not one is more 
sweet to the soul than the abiding presence. 
Jesus says: “I will not leave you comfort- 
less, I will send you another Comforter,” 
and this Comforter is to be with us and 
dwell in us. Jesus Christ, crucified, risen, 
glorified, can do more for us by His other 
self — the Holy Spirit — in us, than He could 
in person on the earth with us. And so the 
meaning of the divine promise is that Jesus 
comes back to the earth again, and every be- 
liever has Him — all of Him — to himself. 
Surrender to Him and He will come into 
your life and bring that completeness which 
you need for life and for service. Then you 
can say : 

“I have a wondrous guest, 

Who speeds my feet, who moves my hands. 
Who strengthens, guides, commands, 

Whose presence gives me rest. 

He dwells within my soul, 

He sweeps away the filth and gloom, 
Garnishes well the empty room, 

And now pervades the whole.” 


192 


XIII. 


THE PRICE OF POWER. 

There is a law of exchange that rules in 
every sphere of human activity. The man 
who succeeds in this life must pay the price. 
God hath decreed that if we would get, we 
must give. This law holds good in the spir- 
itual realm. If we would have business 
transactions in the upper-world, if we would 
have the power that comes down from above, 
we must pay the price. 

If you would know the price of power, 
listen to Jesus: “If any man would come 
after me, let him deny himself and take up 
his cross and follow me.” Jesus is not 
speaking of what is generally called self- 
denial; He is going vastly deeper into the 
Christian life than that. Read the verse 
through and you will find that there are 
three persons referred to: first, the “ any 
many 3 and then the two others represented 
by the words “himself” and “me” In the 
teaching of Jesus, to “say no to his self” 
is coupled with “follow me;” and the oppo- 
site is implied that if “any man” will not do 
as Christ commands — “follow me” — he will 
continue to do as he is now doing — “deny 
Christ and follow his self.” We find that 


193 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


the two persons “self” and “Jesus” are 
placed in the sharpest contrast. They are 
sworn enemies and every man must decide 
to which he will yield his allegiance. To 
agree with the one, is to deny the other. To 
say no to “his self” in any matter that comes 
up in life, is to say yes to “Jesus.” If any 
man would come after Jesus; if any man 
would be filled with the Spirit; if any man 
would have power over sin and selfishness; 
if any man would be used of God in winning 
souls to Jesus, he must say no to “his self” 
and yes to Christ. This is the price of 
power. Let us see how this is worked out 
in the life of the believer. 

The Law of the Spirit. 

It is a law of the physical world that if 
you would have a force obey you, you must 
obey the law by which that force operates. 
Water will do your bidding, but you must 
understand first the law by which water 
works and adapt yourself to that law. 
Electricians for the last twenty years have 
been studying the law of electricity, and, 
having discovered that law, they have con- 
structed their machinery to obey it and 
thereby have made electricity their slave. 
There is no more electricity in the world to- 


194 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


day than there was when Adam first stepped 
out on the greensward of Paradise. The 
difference is, men did not understand the 
law of electricity then, and so they could not 
summon it to do their bidding. 

It is so with the Holy Spirit. There is 
as much of the Holy Spirit in the 
little country church as there is in the 
great city tabernacle. “Where two or three 
have gathered together in my name 
there I am also in the midst of them, and 
that to own and to bless,” is the promise of 
Christ. The trouble with us is we are slow 
to learn the law by which the Spirit works. 
God is not a God of favoritism. There is no 
aristocracy in grace. Christ Jesus has no 
specially-chosen ones whom He endues with 
the power of the Spirit and leaves the rest 
without the circle of His special privileges. 
His gifts are all of sovereign grace it is 
true, but the Spirit’s indwelling is for every 
one who will obey the law by which the 
Spirit operates. 

A Divine Thirst. 

One of the first things in this divine law 
of the Spirit is a longing, a hungering of 
the individual heart to be filled: “On the 
last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus 


195 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


stood and cried saying, ‘If any man thirst, 
let him come unto me and drink. He that 
believeth on me as the Scripture hath said, 
out of him shall flow rivers of living water.’ 
This spake He of the Spirit which they that 
believed on Him were to receive, the Spirit 
not yet having been given, Jesus not yet 
having been glorified.” ( Jno. 7 :37-39.) In 
the Sermon on the Mount Christ said: 
“Blessed is the man that hungers and thirsts 
after righteousness for he shall be filled.” 

Have you this divine thirst? Are you 
hungering and thirsting after righteous- 
ness? Until it dawns upon you that there 
is need in your own life for just such a bless- 
ing as the one Christ is speaking about in 
these passages, it is not likely that you will 
trouble yourself about seeking it. The 
terms “filled,” “baptized,” “rivers,” recur- 
ring so often in the New Testament, in de- 
scribing the work of the Holy Spirit, mean 
something. They represent a blessing. 
There is some substance at the back of the 
shadow. The blessing is that God will in- 
dwell His people. Have you got the sub- 
stance? Is there something in your life to 
correspond to the New Testament picture 
of the man who has been filled with the 
Spirit? Does your whole soul go out after 


196 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


the living God? If you feel your need of 
the divine infilling, then the next thing is to 

Pay the Price . 

As this divine fullness is for everyone 
who will pay the price by obeying the law 
by which the Spirit works, let me call your 
attention to the conditions which must be 
met in order that we may have this fullness 
of the Spirit which equips for life and for 
service. 

1. You must be cleansed. 

In speaking of the Gentiles, Peter said: 
“Giving them the Holy Ghost even as He did 
us; and He made no distinction between us 
and them, cleansing their hearts by faith.” 
( Acts 15 : 8-9. ) God first cleansed their 
hearts, and then gave them the Holy Spirit. 
How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit 
if we are filled with something else? The 
heart must first be emptied and cleansed. 

The milkman called this morning on his 
round. The housewife heard his call. There 
was by her side on the table a pitcher. It is 
her pitcher, for she bought it last week with 
her own money. She picks up this pitcher 
and looks into it, but finds that it is not 
clean. She would never think of taking 
that dirty pitcher for milk. It must be 


197 


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emptied and cleansed, then she takes it out 
for the milk. Indeed, if she were to take it 
out dirty the milkman would refuse to put 
his milk into it. So a heart may belong to 
God, that is it may be the heart of a re- 
generated man, and yet the life may not be 
clean. 

This cleansing is different from forgive- 
ness. It is one thing to be forgiven, but 
quite another thing to be cleansed. David 
was a forgiven man when he wrote the fifty- 
first Psalm, but forgiveness, great and 
sweet as it was, was not enough for Israel’s 
now so deeply taught and penitent king. 
“Create in me a clean heart,” he cries, “and 
renew a right spirit within me.” This is 
over and above being born again, over and 
above and beyond and deeper than forgive- 
ness. Read what John says, “He is faithful 
an»l just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse 
us from all unrighteousness.” Here for- 
giveness and cleansing are spoken of as two 
different acts. Forgiveness comes first, 
cleansing comes afterwards. The one 
makes us safe from the penalty of the law, 
the other makes us free from the evil effects 
of sin. Forgiveness is an act of the Divine 
One releasing the sinner from punishment; 
cleansing is an act of the Divine One taking 


198 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


away the stains of sin from the soul of the 
sinner. Forgiveness has to do with the 
sinner’s attitude towards God ; cleansing has 
to do with his attitude towards self. For- 
giveness affects liis legal standing; cleans- 
ing affects his moral standing. God is the 
actor, the blood of Jesus Christ is the agent, 
and faith is the avenue through which the 
sinner receives the forgiveness and the 
cleansing. Come to Him in faith and He 
will cleanse you from all unrighteousness. 

How often does a mother say to her child 
when putting on it a new, clean, white dress 
in the morning, “Now, my darling, do keep 
clean.” “Yes, mother,” says the little one, 
and she intends to do so; but alas, for her 
intention! It is not long before she comes 
in with her dress all soiled. The mother 
can wash it and make it clean again, as 
white as ever, but it is weary, wearing work, 
this everlasting washing. Wouldn’t it be 
just splendid, for many a hard-working 
mother, if she could put some power within 
the child — her own self, for instance — by 
which the child would be kept from getting 
soiled? This is just what Jesus does. After 
He has cleansed the heart of the trusting 
one, He puts a power within by which the 
believer is kept from defiling himself. 


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2. You must apprehend that for which 
you have been apprehended. 

The blind man does not need more light, 
but more eyes; the deaf man does not need 
more sound, but more hearing; and the 
Christian does not need more Spirit, but 
more of the inspiration, the inbreathing of 
the Spirit. 

Suppose I go to a man who is sick with 
pneumonia and I say to the nurse, “Madam, 
he needs more air.” 

“But the windows are all wide open,” she 
says; “he has all the air there is. Do you 
not see that it is not more air that he needs, 
but more lungs?” 

The Spirit is “ spiritus ” the breath of 
God, the breath of Jesus Christ, and the 
church is the lungs, if I may say it, and you 
and I are the cells in those lungs ; and if the 
lungs get closed up you will have a consump- 
tive church, a church that is full of weak- 
ness and failure, simply because it does not 
take in more of the Spirit. 

This is also true of the individual. We 
need more of the infilling of the Spirit. We 
need to lay hold, with a firm grasp, the thing 
for which we have been laid hold upon. You 
know when Peter was first commanded to 
kill and eat of the creatures let down from 


200 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


heaven he said, “Not so, Lord, I have never 
eaten anything common or unclean.” But 
after God’s revelation he was willing to give 
up his lifelong prejudices. You meet with 
men to-day who refuse to receive the teach- 
ing about the Holy Spirit. They say, “Not 
so, Lord, I believe in the good old way of 
putting things, and I refuse to accept fur- 
ther light that may break from Thy Word.” 
Such a spirit stereotypes a man’s power. 
He cannot advance with God. Open your 
heart to the divine teaching. Do not let 
your prejudices get in the way of your ad- 
vance in the Christian life. 

This is the attitude of mind we must 
maintain towards God and His truth. We 
must not try to bring the Scriptures down 
to fit our own narrow experiences; we must 
bring our experience up to fit the full meas- 
ure of divine teaching. Until it dawns upon 
the mind that God has made provision for 
the indwelling of every one of His children 
by the Holy Spirit, it is not likely that they 
will trouble themselves about the conditions 
of such an indwelling. Lay hold upon this 
promise, for it is that for which God has 
laid hold upon you. 

3. You must abandon the idea that you 
can use the Spirit and yield yourself to the 


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Spirit to be used of Him in the work of the 
Master. 

Many people want to know the secret of 
power. They would give much to be able 
to do what they hear of others doing. But 
like Simon, the sorcerer, their gifts are of 
the world and their plea for the Spirit is 
that they may use the peculiar power for 
their own glory. God does not bestow His 
gifts upon such. 

If you had asked Peter where he got his 
power, he would have answered, “I did not 
get the power, the power got me. I waited 
in yonder upper-room until it came, and 
when it came I was under its spell.” As 
a wheel is dipped into the water and made 
to turn the spindles of the factory, so Peter 
was dipped into the Spirit and swept by the 
current. Paul broadens on the idea: “For 
this cause I bow my knee unto the Father 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye being 
rooted and grounded in love may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the 
breadth, length, depth, and height, and to 
know the love of Christ, which passeth 
knowledge, that ye might be filled unto all 
the fullness of God.” (Eph. 3:14.) You 
may dip out of the ocean and fill a vessel, 
but if you will only let that vessel down in- 


202 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


to the ocean, it will fill itself. This seems 
to be the thought of Paul. Cast yourself 
into the great deep of the Spirit’s presence, 
then there will be no trouble in getting 
filled. 

4. The Holy Spirit must be believed in. 

Paul says that “The blessings of Abra- 
ham might come on the Gentiles through 
Jesus Christ; that we might receive the 
promise of the Spirit through faith.” (Gal. 
3:14). No one doubts how we receive the 
blessings of Abraham. All agree that it is 
by faith. But how slow we are to receive 
the acompanying statement of Paul, “that 
we might receive the promise of the Spirit 
through faith.” The Holy Spirit is the gift 
of the Father and the Son. ( Jno. 15 :26-28.) 
This gift is received by faith. In fact, all 
of God’s promises are through faith, re- 
ceived. By faith we are regenerated, by 
faith we are justified, by faith we are sanc- 
tified, by faith we receive Christ as the 
power of God into the life, and by faith we 
receive the Holy Spirit as the enduement of 
the Father and the Son equiping us for life 
and service. “If ye being evil know how 
to give good gifts unto your children, how 
much more will your Heavenly Father give 
the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.” Do 


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you believe this? Then ask, believing that 
ye receive, and ye shall have. 

Complete and Unconditional Surrender. 

There can be no infilling of the Spirit 
where there is not a total, unconditional and 
absolute surrender. We must say, 

“In full and glad surrender, 

I give myself to thee.” 

This means the surrender of our wills to 
the will of God. Here is the crux of the 
whole matter. We can give of our money, 
of our time, of our talents, but when it 
comes to giving up our wills to God so 
many of us are unwilling to make the sur- 
render. Have you ever surrendered your 
will to the will of God? Do you reserve the 
right to do as you please? I remember 
when I was a boy, I honored my father and 
obeyed him, and yet, I am conscious now, 
that I always reserved the right to disobey 
whenever I pleased. I am conscious of that 
with respect to my Christian experience. 
There was a time when I honored God and 
loved Him and obeyed Him, but I reserved 
the right to disobey whenever I pleased. 
There must be no reserved rights. God can- 


204 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


not use you unless you will work as He 
wills. When you follow your own will you 
are serving self and not God. You may in- 
cidentally serve God, for now and then your 
will may be in line with His will, but it is 
not your fixed purpose to study to know 
what God wills, that you may do it; your 
purpose is to do your own will whether it 
pleases God or not. 

Neither can we buy God off. He makes 
an explicit demand and nothing will satisfy 
Him but absolute obedience. 

I heard of a boy once who went fishing 
contrary to his father’s will. He caught a 
nice string of fish and as he was returning 
home that evening, he said to himself, 
“Father told me not to go fishing, but he 
loves fish and I will give him this nice string 
of fish which I have caught and that will ap- 
pease his wrath and save me.” 

When he came, his father was waiting for 
him. The boy said, “Father, just look what 
a nice string of fish I have brought you. I 
am going to give them all to you. Aren’t 
you proud of your boy?” 

The father said, “Son, go put up the fish 
and come here.” The boy did it. 

The father said, “Son, did I not tell you 
to stay at home to-day?” 


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“Yes, sir.” 

“Did I not tell you that I would punish 
you if you went fishing?” 

“Yes, sir, but look what a fine string of 
fish I brought you.” 

“I know, but listen to me, son, you must 
obey me.” 

“Yes, father, I know that, but I knew you 
loved fish so I thought I would just slip 
down to the creek and catch you some. 
And you see how successful I was. I am 
going to give them all to you.” 

“Well, that is alright, my son, but I 
must punish you. I want obedience and 
not fish. Do what I tell you. If I want fish, 
I will send you down to the creek to catch 
them for me.” 

The boy remembers that fishing episode 
yet. 

That is somewhat the relation we sustain 
to God. He wants our obedience, but we 
go out into the world and follow the bent of 
our own wills and then come with our gifts 
and try to buy the Lord off. He wants our 
gifts, but He wants our hearts first. 

When the people of Galatia were negoti- 
ating an unconditional capitulation to the 
Romans, Egerius on the part of the Romans 
inquired of the embassadors, “Are the people 


206 


THE PRICE OF POWER 


of Galatia in their own power ?” When an 
affirmative answer was given, he next in- 
quired, “Do you deliver up yourselves, the 
people of Galatia, your city, your friends, 
your waters, your boundaries, your temples, 
your utensils, all your property, human and 
divine, into my power and the power of the 
Roman people?” “We surrender all,” said 
the embassadors. “And I accept you,” said 
he. These are God’s conditions. 

It means also the enthronement of Christ. 
In every heart there is a cross and a throne. 
There are tw T o contending parties for the 
throne. These two parties are Christ and 
self. While one is on the throne, the other 
hangs on the cross. When self is on the 
throne, Christ is on the cross; when Christ 
is on the throne, self is on the cross. Who is 
on the cross, and who on the throne in your 
life? Do we sing, 

“All hail the power of Jesus’ name. 

Let angels prostrate fall, 

Bring forth the royal diadem 
And crown Him Lord of all,” 

when at that very moment we have Jesus 
nailed to the cross in our own lives? Under 
such conditions, there could be no surren- 
der of our wills to the will of Christ, and, of 
course, no infilling of the Spirit for life and 
for service. 


207 


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There is a wonderful picture drawn in 
Bevelation. Christ is represented as 
standing at the door and knocking. He is 
not knocking that He may come in and save, 
as many interpret it, but that He may come 
into the fellowship of the inner-life. He is 
asking that matters which seem of such im- 
portance be laid aside and that He be al- 
lowed to come in as an intimate friend. But 
there He stands on the outside of the life. 
Is that not the picture of many a Christian 
to-day? Jesus has been accepted as Savior, 
but He has not been accepted as Master and 
Lord. He has not been admitted to that 
inner-life which controls the whole life. The 
scene is pathetic. Christ who died to save, 
forced to stand on the outside. 

“Oh, Jesus, art thou standing 
Outside the fast-closed door, 

In lowly patience waiting 
To cross the threshold o’er? 

We have the name of Christian, 

His name and sign we bear; 

Oh, shame, thrice shame upon us, 

To keep Him standing there!” 

Let an humble petition rise from every 
heart for the indwelling presence of the 
Divine One. 

“Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, 

With all thy quickening powers, 

Kindle a flame of sacred love 
In these cold hearts of ours.” 


208 


XIV. 


WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FILLED 
WITH THE SPIRIT. 

There is no more important question in 
all the realms of sacred teaching than the 
one concerning the Spirit’s presence and 
work within the soul. Our relation to God 
is our relation to the Holy Spirit. We can- 
not be too careful as to the sentiment and 
feeling we hold towards Him. Our soul 
should bow in humble reverence and love 
and submission. 

In Ezekiel’s vision of the river from the 
sanctuary the very first measurement of the 
waters brought out the fact that they had 
reached to the ankles. This may, without 
any straining of the figure, very fitly repre- 
sent our practical obedience to the Holy 
Spirit and the experience so often referred 
to in the Scripture as “being filled,” or 
“walking in the Spirit.” There are many 
earnest Christians who, as yet, know little 
of the emotional side of religious experience, 
but who are honestly endeavoring to obey 
every true spiritual impulse and walk in 
the light which God gives. We need not 
wait for the depths of Christian mysticism, 
or the heights of holy rapture, to begin do- 


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ing the things which we believe that God 
would have us do. The Holy Spirit comes 
into our lives that we might have both light 
and power ; the light to see what God would 
have us do, and power to enable us to do 
it. If we walk in the Spirit we shall very 
soon find our hearts listening to the respon- 
sive “Well done” of the Holy Ghost, and 
find the joy and comfort which do not al- 
ways come by seeking them, but which He 
never fails to give as the reward of faithful 
obedience. 

We want to live in Christ. We can live 
in Him only as we surrender ourselves to 
the Spirit to be led; only as we surrender 
to the Spirit to be transformed in our inner 
lives into the image of Christ. It is this 
inner work of the Spirit and its meaning to 
the individual Christian that we are to con- 
sider now. 


False Conceptions. 

In order that we may get a clear-cut con- 
ception of what it does mean to be filled 
with the Spirit, let us first clear the subject 
of some of the rubbish that has gathered 
around it through false teaching. We must 
know what it does not mean as well as what 


210 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


it does mean to be filled with the Spirit be- 
fore we can be thoroughly informed. 

1. No supernatural powers given. 

To be filled with the Spirit, an experience 
which brings God into the daily life, does 
not mean that the individual will be infal- 
lible. There are no supernatural powers 
given. The Spirit simply takes possession 
of the powers we have and raises them to 
their highest degree of efficiency. It is 
true there are special gifts, but even then it 
is the human powers at work under the di- 
rection of the Holy Spirit. Even the most 
gifted are not free from errors of judgment. 
Peter, the eloquent preacher of that 1 great 
Pentecostal sermon, and a man filled with 
the Spirit, fell into wrong, as Paul tells us. 
(Gal. 2:11.) 

To illustrate what it means for the Spirit 
to have possession of the individual powers, 
let us suppose that we have before us the 
blue prints for a magnificent cathedral. No 
one man can build, by himself, this great 
structure. The master-architect has under 
him many workmen, and to each he gives 
the blue prints for that particular part of 
the building which they are to construct. 
There may be differences in the skill of the 
workmen. When we look at the work we 


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will see that it is more finished in some 
places than in others. This is where the 
individual puts the stamp of his own per- 
sonality onto his work ; but having one mas- 
ter-architect, one blue print for the whole 
building, when the structure is finished, it 
is found that every man, though ignorant 
of what the other workmen were doing, has 
been building according to instructions, and 
his work fits into the completed plan. 

God is the Master-Mechanic. There is 
before Him the blue prints of a superb 
structure. The Holy Spirit has in charge 
the work. He gives to each individual, 
who will put himself in His hands, a speci- 
fic part to do ; and while there may be differ- 
ences in the skill of the workmen, there will 
be no difference when it comes to the faith- 
fulness by which they follow the instruc- 
tions of the Holy Spirit; and at last, when 
the structure is completed, it will be found 
that each and every one has put the stamp 
of his own personality upon his work. 

2. This infilling is not for salvation. 

It does not mean that we have to be filled 
in order to be saved. Salvation comes 
through faith in Christ: “Whosoever be- 
lieveth on Him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life.” (John 3:15.) This in- 


212 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


filling of the Spirit comes to saved ones to 
fit them for life and for service. We are 
filled, not that we may be saved, but because 
we are saved. (Gal. 4:6.) We mugt be 
saved before we can receive this infilling of 
the Spirit. (John 14:17.) 

We must remember, however, that the 
word “saved” as used in this connection has 
reference to deliverance from punishment. 
In its broadest sense, to be “saved” means 
infinitely more than deliverance from hell. 
There is a sense, then, in which this infill- 
ing of the Holy Spirit is necessary to the 
broadest application of the word “saved.” 
Our lives ought to be saved from the service 
of sin, and saved to the service of God. All 
of the potential powers of our being ought 
to be saved; every energy of the soul ought 
to be conserved, and every faculty brought 
to its highest development in the service of 
King Jesus. If these things are to be at- 
tained then the infilling of the Spirit is ab- 
solutely essential, for we can never come 
into the full fruitage of our powers ; we can 
never attain the highest reach of develop- 
ment ; we can never do the supremest service 
until we have been filled with the Holy 
Spirit. 

3. It is not simply a rhythm of feeling. 


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This infilling of the Spirit does not con- 
sist simply in a rhythm of feeling. It is 
not merely an experience. Some, no doubt, 
have a decided experience, but the experi- 
ence is not the filling. This is the result 
of the filling. And is it not just ground 
for an experience when a man makes a com- 
plete and unconditional surrender to God? 
But because a person does not have that 
experience, shall we say that he has not 
received the filling? I think not. What 
we insist on is the surrender — the faith that 
takes God at His word. If God gives a 
distinct experience, all right; if He does 
not, still it is all right. The thing we are 
after is not the experience, but the Spirit’s 
indwelling. 

Different dispositions are affected differ- 
ently. We find this in conversion. Some 
people, when they are converted, are broken 
down. Others show no emotion whatever. 
We also find that some people have a dis- 
tinct remembrance of the time of their spir- 
itual birth. Others a vague and indiffer- 
ent impression. But in the practical 
Christian life we find that there is little dif- 
ference in the faithfulness of these two 
classes. So, in the experience of the filling, 
an emotional nature might be stirred to its 


214 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


very depths, while an unemotional nature 
might show no sign of feeling. In some 
the coming of the Spirit is so distinct that 
they point back to it as a new hill-top in 
the range of Christian experiences; while 
others do not have such a consciousness. We 
are not to put the emphasis on the experi- 
ence, forcing every individual into the mold 
of our own Christian history, but on sur- 
render, and let God make the history for 
every life as He wills. 

4. It is not a second blessing. 

Now, it is a blessed thing to be in pos- 
session of the Spirit — to be filled with Him 
— but as to its being a second blessing, dis- 
tinct in point of time in the chronological 
possession of all God’s blessings, I do not 
so read the Bible. I know that there are 
at least three works of grace which must 
precede this divine infilling. That is, if 
we are going to divide the progressive plan 
in God’s dealings with the soul into distinct 
steps. There must first be conviction. This 
is also a work of the Spirit (John 16:18) ; 
second, there must be regeneration, which 
is a work of the Spirit (John 16:18); 
third, there must be cleansing. This is also 
a work of the Spirit ( 1st Cor. 6 :11 ) . Each 
of these three acts, conviction, regeneration, 


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cleansing, are separate and distinct the one 
from the other, and yet they form three 
links in the chain of God’s doings before we 
come to that other experience which we call 
the “infilling of the Holy Spirit.” Let us 
not, therefore, call the infilling of the Holy 
Spirit a second work of grace, distinct in 
point of time from whatever else God might 
have done in the heart, but let us call it the 
continuation of the one work of grace by 
which God saves the soul and fits it for life 
and for service. This work of infilling is 
included in and is a part of the completed 
work of God in the redemption of the soul. 

5. It is not growth in grace. 

Growth in grace is the unfolding of the 
Christ-life inborn in regeneration. The in- 
filling of the Spirit is the coming into the 
life of the personal God to direct and super- 
intend the inward growth. Let me illus- 
trate: I once had the privilege and pleas- 
ure of making a garden. After the ground 
had been prepared and the seed sown, I re- 
member going into that garden one morning 
and looking at the tender plants as they 
were just coming up out of the ground. A 
few days later I went in and worked the 
ground around those plants. There was 
a distinct difference between myself and the 


216 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


plant and the garden. I was the gardener, 
the plant was the thing I had in charge, the 
garden was the field in which I labored. 
Transfer the picture : the garden is the soul, 
the gardener is the Holy Spirit, the plant is 
the new nature. The Holy Spirit comes 
into the garden of the soul that He may 
tend and keep it in order that the new na- 
ture, implanted in regeneration, may come 
to maturity. 

The difference, then, between the infilling 
of the Spirit and growth in grace is this: 
Growth in grace is the development of the 
religious life; the infilling of the Spirit is 
the indwelling of God in the life. The one 
gives fullness of Christian character; the 
other fullness of the divine presence. By 
the one we grow like unto Christ; by the 
other we commune with Christ. The one 
gives beauty of character, the other gives 
power for service. When we come to serve 
God what we want is not simply growth in 
grace, but power. This we get only through 
the indwelling Spirit. 

6. It is not sinless perfection. 

There is a line of teaching, put forth by 
a very earnest but mistaken body of people, 
which has brought the doctrine of the per- 
son and work of the Holy Spirit into disre- 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


pute. It runs this way: First proposi- 
tion — There is another experience after re- 
generation, namely, the infilling of the Holy 
Spirit. This proposition is true. Second 
proposition: This infilling of the Holy 

Spirit is the eradication of the sinful na- 
ture. This proposition is not true. I have 
been asked if I believed in instantaneous or 
progressive sanctification. I believe in the 
Sanctifier. But sanctification is both in- 
stantaneous and progressive. I think a 
man takes a stand towards God in a mo- 
ment, but that stand has to be applied all 
along the life. As we advance we find 
things in our lives that we did not think 
at one time were evil. This is an indica- 
tion of progress. If we will apply the 
standard of truth this is sure to be the case. 
We get more and more light, and, as the 
light is turned on, we see more and more 
distinctly. It is the Spirit’s business to 
turn on the light; and, the more completely 
we are under His influence, the more we 
will see the need for the purifying power of 
the blood. But there will never come a 
time in our experience when all the evil of 
the nature will be eradicated. 

To return to our garden illustration: I 
found that, when the showers came and the 


218 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


sun shone, there was something else that 
came up in that garden besides the seed 
which I had planted. Weeds and grass of 
every kind came up. I cut them down, but 
w T hen the showers came and the sun shone 
they came up again. I cut them down 
again, and again they came up. I kept at 
work through the whole year, but the weeds 
kept coming up. The next year it was the 
same thing. These seeds were indigenous 
to the soil. I could not destroy the seed; 
all that I could do was to keep the weeds 
that came up from coming to fruitage. So 
it is with the soul. The seeds of sin are 
indigenous to the soil of human nature. We 
cannot get rid of the seed. Sin will keep 
coming up wherever circumstances give the 
occasion, but, under the influence and by the 
direction of the Holy Spirit, we can keep 
these weeds and grass cut back so that they 
will never come to fruitage in our lives. 

What the Infilling Will Mean. 

We come now to consider the positive side 
of this proposition. When we take the 
Holy Spirit, He will supply all our needs 
and transfer to our hearts all the graces and 
qualities of the character of Jesus Christ. 
It is the Spirit’s mission to “take of the 
things of Christ and show them unto usj”' 


219 


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and not only show them unto us, but impart 
them to us in the practical transformation 
of our life and character. To use a very 
imperfect figure, it is not unlike the old 
process known as “transfer pictures” by 
which the ready-made design is transferred 
in sections to the material to be decorated, 
and then, by a hot iron, the picture is 
stamped into the fibre of the cloth or leather. 
The graces of Christian character are not 
self-developed, they are transferred to us 
from the Lord Jesus by the Holy Spirit, and 
then burnt in, by the fire of God, and worked 
out in the practical conception of life. 
So the Holy Spirit would have us add to our 
“faith, virtue ; and to virtue, knowledge ; and 
to knowledge, temperance; and to temper- 
ance, patience; and to patience, godliness; 
and to godliness, brotherly kindness ; and to 
brotherly kindness, charity,” and thus to 
complete the fullness of Christian charac- 
ter. 

1. This infilling will mean a life filled 
with the fruit of the Spirit. 

“The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, 
long suffering, gentleness, kindness, faith, 
meekness, temperance.” (Gal. 5:22-23.) 
Nine virtues are woven together in this 
golden chain of the Holy Spirits fruit. 


220 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


They fall into three groups of three, four 
and two, respectively, according as they re- 
fer primarily : To God, to one’s fellowmen, 
to one’s self. 

How can one’s life be filled with these 
fruits unless one’s heart is filled with the 
Spirit? These are the glorious things which 
flourish in the lives of those who are Spirit- 
filled. 

2. It will mean a consciousness of the di- 
vine acceptance. 

“The Spirit beareth witness with our 
spirit that we are the children of God.” 
(Rom. 8:16.) Here we have the inward 
monitor testifying to our soul that we have 
been accepted. How are we to know that 
we are accepted of God? It is true, we 
may believe in His word, and, according to 
the statement of that word, we may have 
the assurance that comes from faith, but we 
can never have the assurance that comes 
from experience until we have the witness 
of the Spirit within. This is the witness 
that gives peace. Christ witnesses for us 
at the throne of God; the Holy Spirit wit- 
nesses for us in our own hearts. 

3. This infilling will mean power in 
prayer. 

“We know not what we should pray for 


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as we ought, but the Spirit Himself maketh 
intercession for us with groanings which 
cannot be uttered.” (Kom. 8:26.) Know- 
ing the mind of the Father, the Spirit makes 
that mind known to the trusting soul. When 
we once come to receive Him, in all of His 
fullness, into our lives we will learn to look 
to Him for suggestions in our devotions, 
and as we press on to deeper experiences of 
grace we shall learn many a holy mystery 
of suffering and of love. We shall take 
upon ourselves more and more “the burden 
of the Lord,” and often be called upon to 
suffer in spirit with those that are in need, 
and even with the tempted and the sinning 
as we “pray through” their conflicts and 
their crises. We may not always under- 
stand these burdens, but we can still pray 
on and commit the interpreting of our 
prayer to Him who understands. There 
will be a divine insistency coming from 
within that will impel devotion. 

4. It means a clear, ringing testimony 
for Christ. 

“And ye shall be witnesses unto me.” 
(Acts 1:8.) Examine every passage in 
which the infilling of the Spirit is men- 
tioned and you will find that this infilling 


222 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 

is always connected with testimony and ser- 
vice. God does not fill us with His Spirit 
simply to make us happy. It' will bring 
into our lives a joy we never had before, but 
that is not the main purpose. This infill- 
ing is intended to make us effective. We 
are His witnesses and the Spirit is given to 
make our testimony powerful. “Herein is 
the Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit.” We must learn to work as well as 
walk in the Spirit. If we are in Him and 
He is in us, He will “waken our ear as one 
that has been instructed,” and we will know 
how to speak a “word in season.” He will 
give us opportunities and as we meet them 
He will give us the message and clothe that 
message with power. 

5. It will mean power in the life. 

“Ye shall have power, the Holy Ghost 
coming upon you.” (Acts 1:8.) The Holy 
Spirit was known in Apostolic days by a 
peculiar power which accompanied His be- 
stowal. There is to-day a power peculiar 
to Him. There are some men who are in- 
explicable. There is a power about their 
work which cannot be traced to any natural 
cause. This peculiar power is the power 
of the Spirit which indwells them. If we 
but trust Him He will illuminate our minds, 


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quicken our intelligence and increase our 
capacity and efficiency in all tlie business 
of life. He who taught Bezeleel and 
Aholiab to design and build the tabernacle 
can still increase and multiply even the nat- 
ural gifts of our mind and the skill of our 
hands. He who showed the disappointed 
disciples “the right side,” where they should 
cast their nets and find a shoal of fishes, 
still know r s how r to direct the perplexed 
business man. and give guidance and pros- 
perity in all the practical problems and en- 
terprises of life. “If any man lack wis- 
dom, let him ask of God who giveth to all 
men liberally and upbraideth not, and it 
shall be given him.” 

6. Presses us on towards the goal. 

Life in the Spirit is a life of progression. 
In fact, life is not simply length of days, 
but the daily web of character which we 
w eave. Our thoughts, imaginations, mo- 
tives, purposes, loves, these are the under- 
threads; our words, tone of voice, looks, 
acts, are the upper-threads, and events are 
the shuttles weaving these threads into the 
w r eb of life. The fabric of life is w T oven out 
of, not w r hat w r e wish, but what we are. If 
we w^ould have that fabric beautiful and 
pure, w r e must let the Spirit have charge of 


224 


WHAT FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT MEANS 


the loom of life. Give the Spirit right of 
way and we shall not be lingering 
in stale experiences, hackneyed phrases and 
beaten paths of old routine ; but the 
reaper shall be following the ploughman, 
and the bud and the blossom shall be 
seen on the branches along with the ripened 
fruit. Our hearts shall be stirred with the 
deep groanings of a desire that cannot rest 
in the things behind. We shall be reach- 
ing out and “pressing on to the things which 
are before,” and striving to “apprehend 
that for which we are apprehended in Christ 
Jesus.” “The Spirit that dwelleth in us 
loveth us to jealousy,” and is ever luring 
us on and pressing us forward to higher ex- 
periences. This is especially true in these 
intensely solemn days in which we live, 
when the Master’s coming draweth near, 
and the very air is vital with the forces of 
the new creation. He maketh us alive to 
the upward calling of God in Christ. He 
draws our hearts out in yearning to meet 
the Bridegroom, and when at last the signal 
for the coming of our Lord shall flash upon 
our vision, the last cord of earthly gravita- 
tion shall, by the Spirit’s power, be sun- 
dered, and there will be nothing for us but 
to rise and meet our Savior in the air. 


225 


XV. 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT. 

In every age of the world there has been 
a struggle against sin. Each generation 
has fought against the tendency to evil. The 
one supreme problem which this world has 
confronted is how to be good. However 
warped and corrupted the soul may be, 
there is yet enough of the divine image lin- 
gering about it to cause a swelling up within, 
a supreme desire, an infinite struggle on its 
part, to beat back the inrushing tides of 
evil, that the God of justice and kindness 
may be enthroned within the temple of the 
heart. 

“I protest,” says Huxley, “that if some 
power would agree to make me always 
think what is true and do what is right on 
condition of being turned into a sort of 
clock and wound up every morning, I would 
instantly close with the offer.” This is the 
cry of a human soul struggling in the dark 
— struggling in the dark for light — while 
wandering on the rough, rugged mountains 
of sin, if haply it may find the highway that 
leads to the city of God. This is the cry 


226 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


that comes ringing up from the depths of 
every heart: the infinite desirability, the 
infinite difficulty of being good. Is there 
one who would not give his all if he could 
close with the offer of becoming a better 
man? 

In the completed economy of God there 
is a way to become good. Under right con- 
ditions it is as natural for character to be- 
come beautiful as for a flower, and if on 
God’s earth there is not some machinery for 
effecting it, then the supreme gift to the 
world has been forgotten. To become good 
is the ultimate end of being. With Brown- 
ing I would say, “Man was made to grow, 
not stop.” And in the language of the di- 
vine philosopher as revealed in the Book of 
books, “Whom He did foreknow, He did 
predestinate to be conformed to the image 
of His Son.” This process by which we 
are conformed to the image of the blessed 
Christ is the work of the Spirit in sancti- 
fication. 

There is no doctrine plainer taught in 
the word of God than this; no doctrine 
sweeter to the heart of the Christian. There 
is no process more essential to Christian 
service than this; yet there is nothing so 
misunderstood. 


227 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


Sanctification Defined. 

If we would get a clear-cut conception of 
the doctrine of Bible sanctification we must 
take into consideration the fundamental 
facts which underlie the Christian experi- 
ence. Christianity is a life. It begins 
with a birth. Its progress is the unfolding 
of a divine thought, a divine concept, a di- 
vine life-germ. This divine, inborn life 
will expand, it will unfold, it will grow. 
The product of its unfolding — the character 
resulting — will be antagonistic to the nat- 
ural inclinations, and contradictory to the 
carnal nature. 

It is also a fundamental fact that in re- 
generation the soul is not entirely purified. 
The governing disposition is made holy, but 
there still remain tendencies which are un- 
subdued. The carnal nature remains. This 
carnal nature is not subject to the will of 
God, neither indeed can be. The difference 
between the believer and the unbeliever is 
this: Sin dwells in the believer; it reigns 
in the unbeliever. In the believer the 
Christ image implanted in the new birth is 
the regnant power; in the unbeliever the 
carnal nature is the regnant power. In the 
unbeliever there is no conflict to speak of; 


228 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


in the believer the conflict between these 
two powers sometimes becomes terrific. 
Therefore, we find in the believer, as Paul 
tells us in Romans (7:13-25), two opposing 
principles. These two opposing principles 
are not mere influences, they are living 
powers. Two words are used in the Greek 
to designate them : The word “Sara” which 
can only signify the organism of an earthly, 
living being consisting of body and soul, 
and cannot denote either an earthly organ- 
ism that is not living or a living organism 
that is not earthly. The other is “ Pneuma 
which signifies the divine power of life be- 
longing to God and communicated in Christ 
to man, by virtue of which man becomes the 
recipient of the divine nature. These two 
antagonistic powers are living forces. This 
is evident from the language of Paul : “For 
the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the 
Spirit against the flesh; for these are con- 
trary the one to the other.” ( Gal. 5 :17. ) 

The difference between these two antagon- 
istic forces is as follows: The carnal na- 
ture is inherited from Adam; the spiritual 
nature we receive from Christ. The one 
we get in natural birth, the other in spir- 
itual birth. The carnal nature tends to 
sin; the spiritual nature to righteousness. 


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The world is the congenial atmosphere of 
the carnal; the Kingdom of God and spir- 
itual things the congenial atmosphere of the 
spiritual. Satan reigns through the carnal ; 
God reigns in the spiritual. The problem 
of Christianity — the supreme struggle in 
the soul — is between these two natures : the 
divine nature struggling to overcome the 
Adamic nature and to subject it to the di- 
vine will. Through the process of sancti- 
fication, the carnal nature which we inher- 
ited from Adam is purged from sin. Satan, 
who now uses that nature as the , vehicle 
through which he expresses _ himself, is 
driven out and a change so wrought in our 
moral life that we become like unto Christ, 
and subject to the will of God. 

With these fundamental facts of the 
Christian experience before us,, we are ready 
for a definition of sanctification. Sanctifi- 
cation is that continuous operation of the 
Spirit by which the divine disposition im- 
planted in the new birth is maintained and 
strengthened, and the life is transformed 
into the image of Christ and made subject 
to the will of God. Or to put it in the lan- 
guage of the school of religious thought 
which nearest accords to my own thinking, I 
would say that, “ Sanctification is the proc- 


230 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


ess by which, according to the will of God, 
we are made partakers of His holiness. 
That it is a progressive work, that it is be- 
gun in regeneration, and that it is carried 
on in the hearts of believers by the presence 
and power of the Holy Spirit, the Sealer 
and Comforter, in the continual use of the 
appointed means — especially the Word of 
God, self-examination, self-denial, watchful- 
ness and prayer.” 

Sanctification is then the coming of the 
Kingdom of God into the heart of the be- 
liever. God wants the whole heart. This 
He cannot have so long as Satan has any 
foothold in our natures. 

It is a progressive work. It cannot be fin- 
ished until every power and possibility of 
the soul is wholly the Lord’s. That man is 
mistaken who thinks that he can in one act 
turn over the whole being to God. The hu- 
man soul is too complicated for that. The 
sun’s rays light up the surface of the ocean ; 
lower down there is semi-darkness, while 
deep down in the depths there is perpetual 
night. So is it with the human soul. We 
see on the surface clearly; lower down only 
partially, while deep down in our natures 
we see not at all. From out this mighty 
deep of being there is continually thrown 


231 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


to the surface thoughts, emotions, desires 
which we cannot account for. It is through 
this subconscious realm that Satan en- 
ters our lives. The process of sanctifica- 
tion must go on until every hidden spring 
of our being is put within the control of 
our Christ. 

Sanctification is a work which the Holy 
Spirit does in the soul. We cannot sanc- 
tify ourselves. It is our business to turn 
over to the Spirit our hearts ; it is His busi- 
ness to work the change. Just in propor- 
tion that we let Him into the soul, just in 
that proportion will He produce a change 
in our lives. 

Sanctification and Related Doctrines. 

We cannot grasp the full significance of 
any truth until we know that truth in its 
relation to the whole body of truth. Every 
doctrine is related to every other doctrine 
in the economy of divine things. So if 
we would understand sanctification we 
must view it in its relation to the whole 
body of truth. 

1. Sanctification and its relation to the 
atonement. 

Every truth in the economy of grace 


232 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


has direct reference to the atonement. 
The atonement is the fundamental truth ; it 
is the centre of the system, in God’s econ- 
omy. It is that which makes all the other 
parts in the plan of salvation real. The 
work of Jesus in the world is two-fold: it 
is a work accomplished for us, destined to 
effect reconciliation between God and man ; 
it is a work accomplished in us, with the ob- 
ject of affecting our sanctification. The 
work accomplished for us we call the atone- 
ment; the work accomplished in us we call 
sanctification. By the atonement a right 
relation is established between God and 
man; by sanctification the fruit of the re- 
established order is secured to man. By 
the atonement the condemned sinner is re- 
ceived into a state of grace; by sanctifica- 
tion the pardoned sinner is made holy. By 
the atonement we are made safe; by sancti- 
fication we are made sound. The steamship 
whose machinery is broken may be brought 
into port and made fast to the dock. She 
is safe, but not sound. Repairs may last 
a long time. Christ designs to make us 
both safe and sound. The application of 
the atonement gives the first, safety; sanc- 
tification gives the second, soundness. 


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POWER FOR SERVICE 


2. Sanctification and regeneration. 

Sanctification is distinguished from re- 
generation as growth from birth. Regener- 
ation is the beginning of Christian life. 
Prior to regeneration there is no influence 
in the human soul making for its eternal 
good, and consequently there can be no sanc- 
tification. Now, the difference is this: re- 
generation is the implantation of a new 
life within the soul ; sanctification is the de- 
velopment of that new life. Regeneration 
is the spiritual birth; sanctification is the 
growth and development of the spiritual be- 
ing. Thus regeneration is instantaneous; 
sanctification is progressive. Development 
is the law of life. The new love in the be- 
liever’s heart follows this law. As George 
Eliot says: “The reward of one duty done 
is the power to do another.” In regener- 
ation we are born again; in sanctification 
we are made again. Regeneration is the 
crisis of the disease of sin ; sanctification is 
the process of convalescence. A holy dispo- 
sition is given to the will in regeneration ; a 
holy character is given to the individual in 
sanctification. 

3. Sanctification and justification. 

Sanctification is distinguished from justi- 

cation in this: Justification changes our 


234 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


state in law before God as judge; sanctifi- 
cation changes our heart and life before 
Him as our Father. Justification precedes; 
sanctification follows as the evidence of it. 
The surety — righteousness of Christ imput- 
ed is our justifying righteousness; the grace 
of God implanted is the matter of our sanc- 
tification. Justification is an act done at 
once; sanctification is a work which is 
gradual and continual. Justification re- 
moves the guilt of sin; sanctification is the 
power of it. Justification delivers us from 
the avenging wrath of God; sanctification 
conforms us to His image. Justification is 
the declarative act of God whereby, in the 
courts of justice, we are pronounced just; 
sanctification is the work of God in the 
heart whereby we are made holy. Justifi- 
cation procures our safety; sanctification 
our soundness. Yet the two are inseparably 
connected in the promises of God (Rom. 
8:28-30) ; in the covenant of grace (Heb. 
8:10) ; in the doctrines and promises of the 
gospel (Acts 5:3); and in the experience 
of all true believers (1 Cor. 6:11). 

4. Sanctification and holiness. 

There is a difference between sanctifica- 
tion and holiness. It is the same differ- 
ence which subsists between pursuit and 


235 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


possession. Sanctification is the transform- 
ing process ; holiness is the state of being af- 
ter that process has been accomplished. In 
sanctification we are moving towards holi- 
ness; in holiness we have attained the de- 
sired result. Let it be understood that God 
desires the holiness of all His people, and 
that it is His purpose in the Gospel econ- 
omy to make them all holy. Sanctification 
is the process by which God is doing the 
work. And if you are not sanctified, if 
you are not moving towards divine perfec- 
tion, you have never been born again, your 
hope is vain and you are yet in your sins. 
“To believe yourselves forgiven while you 
love sin and live in the practice of it, is to 
believe a lie, a monstrous lie. Whom God 
justifies He sanctifies, and the sense of for- 
giveness which is inwrought by His Holy 
Spirit cannot fail to produce holy fears and 
strenuous efforts after new obedience.” 

Process of Transformation. 

How are we to be sanctified? This is a 
question of vital importance. God demands 
our sanctification. The laws of life neces- 
sitate growth. We are getting better and bet- 
ter, or worse and worse, as the days go by. 


236 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


I believe there is a process by which we 
can grow. God has a method, and if that 
method be put into practice we will ad- 
vance towards the divine ideal. As Henry 
Drummond says : “Is corn to grow by meth- 
od and character by caprice? If we cannot 
calculate to a certainty that the forces of 
religion will do their work, then is religion 
vain. And if we cannot express the laws 
of these forces in simple words, then is 
Christianity not the world’s religion, but 
the world’s conundrum.” We find the meth- 
od of growth outlined in the word of God. 
We are sanctified by the Spirit. Through 
the Spirit’s operation within the soul we 
are transformed from the image of the 
world and conformed to the image of Christ. 

When we come to Christ we are not sim- 
ply relieved of the guilt and the condemna- 
tion of sin and then turned loose to drift 
whithersoever our fancy may chance to 
carry us. If such were the case we would 
be like a vessel driven by the storm. Re- 
lieved of its cargo it would be in no immed- 
iate danger of sinking, but without chart or 
compass, left to the mercy of the wind and 
the waves, there would be a thousand chances 
against its ever coming into port. This 
is not God’s method of dealing with the soul. 


237 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


After Christ has borne onr transgressions 
for us there comes aboard the divine pilot, 
the Holy Spirit, who takes the helm of life 
and guides our bark through many a storm- 
tossed sea until at last we are anchored, 
not by accident, but by the eternal purpose 
of God, in the harbor of everlasting peace. 
Or, to take another figure, when the rough 
block of marble has been blasted from the 
quarry there is little of the appearance of 
the angel in it. But the sculptor begins his 
work; he chisels off the rough corners, and 
under the touch of his chisel there comes 
to light the outline of the form of the angel, 
and at last the perfect features. This is 
something of God’s process in His dealing 
with individual souls. Blasted from out 
the great quarry by the power of the Gospel 
we are indeed rough blocks. There is lit- 
tle in us that looks like the divine Christ. 
But the heavenly sculptor takes charge, cuts 
off the rough corners and as the days come 
and go, under the touch of his chisel there 
comes to light the outline of the features of 
Christ. We are transformed in the same 
likeness from glory to glory. In this pro- 
cess the Holy Spirit fashions us into the 
image of Christ. We cannot change our- 
selves. We are the subjects of His trans- 


238 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 

forming power. We are to reflect the glory 
of the Lord with unveiled face. Everything 
is to be stripped away that would prevent 
a clear reflection. This means the tearing 
away of prejudices, worldliness, selfishness, 
avariciousness, sordidness and sin of every 
kind. It means that we must give the 
Spirit right-of-way in our own hearts and 
lives. 

Surrender yourself to Him to be changed 
and cleansed and used as He may see fit. 
He will then get out of you and your life 
just what He wants. He will bring into 
your life the feeling of completeness. Then 
you can sing : 

“1 havo a wonderful Guest, 

Who speeds my feet, who moves my hands, 
Who strengthens, comforts, guides, commands, 
Whose presence gives me rest. 

He dwells within my soul, 

He swept away tho filth and gloom. 

He garnished fair the empty room. 

And now pervades the whole.” 

In one of her exquisite poems Francis 
Havergal tells of a friend who was given an 
Aeolian harp which, she was told, sent out 
unutterably sweet melodies. She tried to 
bring the music by playing upon it with her 
hands, but found that the seven strings 
would yield but one tone. Keenly disap- 


230 


POWER FOR SERVICE 


pointed, she turned to the letter sent before 
the gift and found that she had not noticed 
the directions given. Following them care- 
fully she placed the harp in the open win- 
dow-way where the wind could blow upon it. 
Quite a while she waited, but at last, with 
the twilight, the music came: 

“Like stars that tremble into light 
Out of the purple dark, a low, sweet note 
Just trembling out of silence, antidote 
To any doubt; for never finger might 
Produce that note, so different, so new; 
Melodious pledge that all he promised should 
come true. 

Anon a thrill of all the strings; 

And then a flash of music, swift and bright, 

Like a first throb of weird Auroral light. 

Then crimson coruscations from the wings 

Of the Pole-Spirit! Then ecstatic beat 

As if an angel host went forth on shining feet. 

Soon past the sounding star-lit march, 

And then one swelling note grew full and long, 
While like a far-off cathedral song, 

Through dreamy lengths of echoing isles and 
arch, 

Float softest harmonies, around, above, 

Like flowing coral robes of blessing and of love. 

Thus, while the holy stars did shine 
And listen, the aeolian marvels breathed; 

While love and peace and gratitude unwreathed 
With rich delight in one fair crown were mine, 
The wind that bloweth where it listeth brought 
This glory of harp-music, not my skill or 
thought.” 


240 


SANCTIFICATION BY THE SPIRIT 


And the listening friend to whom this 
w T ondrous experience is told, who has had a 
great sorrow in her life, and been much 
troubled in her thoughts and plans, re- 
plies : 


“I too have tried 


My finger skill in vain. But opening now 
My window, like wise Daniel, I will set 
My little harp therein, and, listening, wait 
The breath of heaven, the Spirit of our God.” 

Oh, dearly beloved, let us learn the lesson 
of the Aeolian harp. Man is God’s Aeolian 
harp. The human-taught finger cannot 
bring out the rare music. When the instru- 
ment is set to catch the full breathing of the 
breath of God, then shall it sound out the 
rarest wealth of music’s melodies. 



241 


XVI 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE. 

Paul, in writing of the heritage conferred 
upon us in Christ, says : “In whom ye also, 
having heard the word of truth, the gospel 
of your salvation — in whom, having also 
believed, ye were sealed with the Holy 
Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of 
our inheritance unto the redemption of 
God’s own possession, unto the praise of 
His glory” (Eph. 1:13-14). God’s plans 
for us are of great dimensions every way. 
He is “rich in mercy, and for His great 
love wherewith He loved us, even when we 
were dead through our trespasses, made 
us alive together with Christ, and raised 
us up with Him, and made us sit with Him 
in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus; 
that in the ages to come He might show 
the exceeding riches of His grace in kind- 
ness towards us in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 
2:4-8). Paul here lifts for a moment the 
curtain that shrouds the future and en- 
ables the Christian to catch a foregleam 
of his glorious possession in Christ. He 
presses forward that He may gather from 


242 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 


this “heritage,” as revealed in Christ, the 
crowning tribute “to the praise of the glory 
of God.” 

This “heritage,” however, assumes a two- 
fold character. If the saints have their 
“heritage” in Christ, partly possessed and 
partly to be possessed, God has likewise, 
and antecedently His inheritance in them, 
of which He, too, has still to take full pos- 
session. The Holy Spirit, as the seal, 
shadows forth this truth. Believers have 
been purchased by the blood of Christ. God 
marks them as His property by the bestowal 
of the Holy Spirit. This Spirit takes up His 
abode in them and witnesses to their accept- 
ance. Salvation includes uttermost deliver- 
ance. Paul renders praise to God that they 
are sealed with the stamp of the Spirit, 
which makes them God’s property, and gives 
assurance of absolute redemption. 

The Authority Behind the Seal. 

The one who does the sealing is God, the 
Father. In the first chapter of Ephesians 
we have a wonderful portrayal of His di- 
vine plan for us. He has blessed us in His 
Son with all blessings (1:3); He has 
chosen us in His love before all time (1 :4) ; 
He has predestinated us in His good pleas- 


243 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


ure to the place of sonship (1:5) ; He has 
graced us in His beloved with all beauty 
(1:6); He has enriched us in His grace 
with an abundant endowment (1:7-8); He 
has revealed to us His secret plan by which 
all things are summed up in Christ (1:9- 
10) ; He has displayed in us His glory in 
His action of love towards us (1:11-12), 
and He has sealed us with His Spirit, mak- 
ing us His own possession ( 1 :13 ) . This 
sets before us the Father’s work, culminat- 
ing in the seal of the Spirit, which is the 
earnest of our inheritance. Let us get fixed 
in our minds the attitude of the divine per- 
sons in the operation of the saving powers 
of the Gospel. The Father is the source of 
every blessing ; Christ is the channel through 
which the blessings flow, and the Holy Spir- 
it is the power by which these blessings are 
applied. The Father gives, the Son be- 
stows, the Holy Spirit secures. God chooses, 
Christ purchases and the Holy Spirit quick- 
ens. But in all these activities by which 
the wonderful grace of God goes out to- 
wards man, the source of all blessing is the 
Father. 

The Ones Sealed . 

Believers in Christ, and believers only, 


244 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 


are the ones sealed with the Holy Spirit. 
Sinners are quickened by the Spirit; saints 
are sealed by the Spirit. As an illustration 
of this sealing of the Father, we can do no 
better than to look at the sealing of Christ. 
John Owen tells us : “If we can learn aright 
how Christ was sealed, we shall learn how 
w r e are sealed. The sealing of Christ by the 
Father w r as the communication of the Holy 
Spirit in all His fullness to Him, authoriz- 
ing Him and equiping Him w r ith power for 
all the acts of His office, so that He might 
evidence the presence of God.” This is true 
with the believer. In this sealing God owns 
them and gives them His Holy Spirit to fit 
them for their duties, to enable them to ful- 
fill their obligations as Christians, and in 
every w T ay to endue them that they may have 
powder to discharge the work given them to 
do. 

God tells us that as believers we are ac- 
cepted in Christ, adopted into His family, 
and acknowledged as His children : “Behold 
w r hat manner of love the father has be- 
stowed upon us that we shall be called chil- 
dren of God” (1 Jno. 3:1). “We have re- 
ceived the Spirit of adoption whereby we 
cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bear- 
eth witness w r ith our spirit that we are the 


245 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


children of God” (Rom. 8:15-16). The Spir- 
it of the Father and the Son dwells with ns, 
witnessing to us of the love of God, and 
leading us into all truth, instilling a deep 
and restful peace, kindling a fire within the 
breast, and energizing the soul so that it 
pours out itself in prayer, and labors for the 
advancement of the Kingdom of God. 

The Stamp of the Infinite. 

A seal is a token of proprietorship put 
by the owner upon his property ; or it is the 
official stamp that gives validity; or it is 
the pledge of inviolability guarding a treas- 
ure from profane or injurious hands. Cor- 
responding to these representations, we 
have the protecting seal, the ratifying seal, 
and the proprietary seal. The same seal 
may serve each, or all of these purposes. So 
far as the seal which God places upon His 
people is concerned, it includes them all. 
The witnessing of the Holy Spirit marks 
men out as the purchased possession of God 
(1 Cor. 6 :19-20), and by thus marking them 
out guards them from evil and wrong (1 
Cor. 4:30), while at the same time it rati- 
fies their divine sonship (Gal. 4:6), and 
guarantees their personal share in the prom- 


246 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 

ises of God (2 Cor. 1:20-22). Thus the 
sealing with the Spirit becomes a bond be- 
tween God and man ; a sign at once of what 
we are and shall be to God, and of what He 
is and will be to us. It secures and it as- 
sures. It stamps us for God’s possession, 
and assures us of His kingdom and glory as 
our possession. 

This seal is the Holy Spirit himself. It 
is not simply an emotion or an experience. 
It goes vastly deeper than that. It is the 
consciousness of the Spirit’s presence with- 
in, witnessing to the believer, assuring him 
that he is Christ’s, and that Christ is his. 

This assurance is manifold. Is Christ 
the Son of God? So are we sons of God. 
(John 3:1.) Is He beloved of the Father? 
So are we. (John 3:1.) Is He the right- 
eous one? So are we in Him. (2 Cor. 5 :21.) 
Is He without spot? So are we in Him. 
(Eph. 1:6.) Is he precious to God? So are 
we in Him. (Peter 2:7.) Is He the Holy 
One? So are we in Him. (1 Cor. 1:2.) Is 
He the anointed of God? So are we. (1 Jno. 
2:27.) These manifold blessings, of which 
the seal of the Infinite is the earnest, are 
secured to us because we are in Christ, and 
what Christ is we are. 


247 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


What the Seal Means. 

< 

It means, first of all, a definite ana fin- 
ished transaction. Hanameel came to Jere- 
miah for him to buy the field; after he had 
bought it he had the transaction written in 
a book, and then took the evidence of the 
purchase, two copies of the written contract, 
one signed and sealed, and the other open 
and placed it in a public place, so that any- 
one could see it. God uses this transaction 
of Jeremiah as a pledge to him that he will 
restore Judah again to their own land ( Jer. 
32:10). This was a definite transaction. So 
a definite transaction was entered into by 
the Father with the Son. The former cove- 
nanted to the latter to give Him those who 
should believe on Him as a reward for his 
vicarious toil. Christ, in turn, covenanted 
to give to His Father all that his own could 
never do. As the rite of circumcision was 
the seal of the covenant that God made 
with Abraham (Gen. 17 :10-11, Rom. 4:11), 
so the seal with the Spirit is the mark of 
the transaction between God and Christ as 
to our salvation. Christ has bought us with 
the price of His own blood. The proof of 
the acceptance of the atoning work of 
Christ is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit ; 


248 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 

the proof of the believer’s acceptance with 
the Father is the indwelling of the Holy 
Spirit. 

Things are also sealed for security. We 
read in Esther (8:8) that the writing that 
was written in the King’s name and sealed 
with the King’s ring may no man reverse. 
The law of the Medes and Persians altered 
not. In a far higher sense we know that no 
man or demon can reverse the seal which 
God, the Father, places upon the believer. 
We are sealed until the day of redemption. 
(Eph. 4 :30.) How sweet is that little word 
“until!” How often we find it occurring! 
Looking back upon the past, we remember 
that He sought us like the shepherd did the 
sheep, “until” He found us. (Luke 14:4.) 
Thinking of the future, we find that when 
He has begun the good work in us He will 
perform it “until” the day of Jesus Christ. 
(Phil. 1:6.) In the meantime we are to 
remember Him “until” He comes again. (1 
Cor. 11:26.) 

Again, the thing sealed belongs to some- 
one. This implies ownership. God’s prom- 
ise to Zerubbabel was, “I will make thee as 
a signet, for I have chosen thee.” (Haggai 
2:23.) The Spirit frequently uses the pos- 
sessive in reminding believers of their rela- 


249 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


tionship to Christ. All things are ours be- 
cause “we are Christ’s.” (1 Cor. 3:23.) We 
should recognize each saint, whatever his 
social position may be, because he is Christ’s 
servant.” (1 Cor. 7:22.) When our Lord 
returns to earth again He will look after 
those who are said to be “Christ’s at His 
coming.” (1 Cor. 15:23.) No believer is 
to think he occupies a peculiar position in 
God’s grace, for “if any man trusts to him- 
self that he is Christ’s, let him consider this 
again with himself, that even as he is 
Christ’s, so also are we.” (2 Cor. 10:7.) 

God has redeemed unto Himself a people. 
He has bought us with a price. His rights 
are both natural and acquired. They are 
redemptional rights. This eternal right in- 
sures our salvation. But let us remember 
that this salvation is come and is coming. 
The words “save” and “redeemed” are used 
in a two-fold sense. They apply to the com- 
mencement and the consummation of the 
new life. The seal which God places upon 
His children implies his ownership, and is 
an earnest of the final consummation by 
which He shall claim every particle of them 
as his own. Therefore, our bodies are to be 
redeemed. “I will ransom them from the 
power of the grave,” says the Lord. So long 


250 


THE SEAL OF THE INFINITE 


as mortality afflicts us, God cannot be sat- 
isfied on our account. His children are suf- 
fering and tortured; they mourn under the 
oppression of the enemy. God’s estate is 
still encumbered with the wreck and ruin 
in which the sin of the race involved us. 
But this mortgage shall be lifted. The debt 
which we owe shall at last be canceled. We 
shall be free from the law of sin and death, 
and shall return with the Lord singing, and 
everlasting joy shall be upon our heads. 

For this we wait until the time appoint- 
ed of the Father — the time when He will re- 
claim His heritage in us, and give us full 
possession of our heritage in Christ. We 
do not, however, wait as did the saints of 
former ages, ignorant of the Father’s pur- 
pose for our future. “Life and immortali- 
ty are brought to light through the Gospel.” 
We see beyond the chasm of death. We en- 
joy in the testimony of the Spirit the fore- 
taste of an eternal and glorious life. We 
have the seal of the Spirit, which is the sure 
pledge and an earnest of our future posses- 
sion. With this hope swelling our hearts, 
we can triumphantly join in the refrain : 
“To thee be the glory, and the power, and 
the dominion, forever and ever. Amen.” 


251 


XVII 


THE PLACE OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE RE- 
LIGIOUS LIFE OF TO-DAY. 

In the economy of redemption every doc- 
trine has its proper place. It should be the 
effort of every Bible student to see the doc- 
trines in their proper perspective. Neither 
too much nor too little emphasis should be 
given, as either would wring them out of 
their connection in the whole body of truth, 
and give to them a false power in the prac- 
tical life of the Christian. This is eminently 
true of the person and work of the Holy 
Spirit. There is now a general prejudice 
towards this part of divine teaching, simply 
because undue emphasis has been given and 
false relations established by unwise teach- 
ers, who have been swept off their feet by 
the currents of a new-found thought. That 
this may not be the case, we wish to close 
this series of studies with an earnest appeal 
to our readers for saneness on this all-im- 
portant question. 


252 


PLACE OF DOCTINE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE TO-DAY 


The Spirit Subordinate to Christ . 

The Holy Spirit is subordinate to Christ. 
“When He is come He shall glorify Me : for 
He shall take of mine, and shall declare it 
unto you,” says Christ. Wherever we find 
the Spirit at work He is magnifying Christ. 
This is his purpose in the world. This does 
not mean, however, that we are not to dis- 
tinguish between His work and the work 
of Christ in the process of redemption. It 
does not mean that we are not to study to 
know just what part the Spirit plays in 
the divine scheme. Some have taken it to 
mean this, and so they steer clear of every^ 
thing which mentions the Holy Spirit. 

The work of Christ and the Spirit is 
intertwined in the process of human re- 
demption. Christ and His work is first, 
fundamental, supreme. We are commanded 
to preach Christ and Him crucified, and 
nothing else. Not only is Christ the world’s 
redeemer, but in Christ the Christian stands 
complete. That is, as soon as the Christian 
receives Christ, he receives the right and the 
title to all his possession. But while the 
Christian stands complete in Christ, and 
while he holds through Christ the right and 
the title to all the promised blessings of 


253 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


God, yet he does not enter into the posses- 
sion of these blessings except as the Spirit 
leads him. It is the office of the Spirit to 
make real to the world what Christ has made 
real for the world. The Christian must pre- 
fer his claim and plead his promise. He 
must ask for the blessing ; he must hope for 
it; he must, by a special act of faith, lay 
hold of and appropriate it. In this way he 
works out his “own salvation with fear and 
trembling, for it is God (the Holy Spirit) 
that worketh in him, both to will and to do 
of his own good pleasure.” 

The work of the Spirit is to apply the re- 
demption which Jesus has wrought out. He 
leads us into all truth. He testifies of Christ. 
He infills the Church and endues it with 
power. In all this his purpose is to mag- 
nify Christ. God hath given Him to every 
believer as his animating life to enable the 
believer to render his testimony for Christ 
clear, strong and effective. This is the rela- 
tion which he sustains to Christ. Let us 
appreciate this relation, and not try to raise 
Him above the position which Christ has as- 
signed to Him, and which He is himself so 
willing and ready to take. 

We are to Realize Him as Present. 

We are to realize the presence of the Spir- 


254 


PLACE OF DOCTINE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE TO-DAY 

it. He is in the world. On the day of Pen- 
tecost God opened the floodgates of heaven 
and poured out the Holy Spirit upon the 
world. That pouring out was once for all. 
He came then into the life of the Church to 
stay until the consummation of the divine 
plan for human redemption. Let us get this 
fact fixed in our minds. We do not have to 
go up to heaven to bring him down ; nor do 
we have to go down into the deep to bring 
him up. He is with us. When the bodily 
presence of Jesus was withdrawn from the 
world a spiritual presence just as real and 
just as personal took his place. Therefore, 
we are not to pray for his coming. Before 
Pentecost Christ told his disciples to pray 
for the Spirit, but after Pentecost we hear 
no more of their praying for Him. The ex- 
pressions are such as indicate His presence. 
Believers are admonished to be “filled with 
the Spirit;” they are commanded to “walk 
in the Spirit but the presence of the Spirit 
is never questioned. 

The Divine Immanence. 

There is to-day a movement of thought 
from the divine transcendence to the divine 
immanence. Into this movement the doc- 
trine of the Holy Spirit fits and enshrines 


255 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


the evangelical aspects of the divine imma- 
nence. Rightly understood, the divine im- 
manence means nothing more than a divine 
energy and life pervading the universe; a 
divine presence dwelling within the human 
soul, filling it and lifting it up into its life 
with God. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit 
holds within itself the vital truths which lie 
at the very heart of the doctrine of the di- 
vine immanence. It solves this whole ques- 
tion by pointing out to us the indwelling and 
all-pervading person — the Holy Spirit. 

This being true, our conception of the 
Spirit’s indwelling should not be cramped 
or narrow. It is a mistake to think of the 
immanence of the Spirit as less than uni- 
versal, or to speak of His indwelling as if it 
were a separate and distinct gift, bestowed 
upon some Christians and withheld from 
others. Monopoly has no place in the divine 
system. The Spirit is for all alike. The 
largest measure of His presence enjoyed by 
anyone may be enjoyed by all. His fullness 
is always present, although it may not al- 
ways be received. 

There are two reasons why all Christians 
do not realize His presence. The first of 
these is that the Holy Spirit must be grasped 


256 


PLACE OF DOCTINE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE TO-DAY 


by faith and not by feeling. By faith we 
know that God is near, but how seldom do 
we feel the touch of his hand, or realize the 
sense of his nearness. It is our faith that 
makes him real. At the very time when 
darkness veils his face from us we believe 
that he is pressing us the closest to his 
breast. So we are to believe in the inhabita- 
tion of the Holy Spirit — yea, believe in it, 
though there be nothing answering to it in 
our experience, though we have no conscious- 
ness of the fact. The fact itself is the impor- 
tant thing; the consciousness of it is a sec- 
ondary matter. This faith must, of course, 
be based upon the Word of God, in which we 
have the promise of his indwelling presence. 

Another thing which stands in the way of 
many and keeps them from having the con- 
sciousness of the indwelling presence is that 
they have never realized that such a thing 
is possible. It is a question of knowledge. 
They have not so much as heard about the 
Spirit and His work. Let us lay hold of 
the fact — God has promised to indwell us 
by His Spirit. Seize this fact and submit 
ourselves to the will of the Spirit, and, as a 
natural result, we will become mediums 
through which He can deliver His message to 
the world. This message is the story of a cru- 
cified Redeemer for the world’s redemption. 


257 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


These two considerations — that the Holy 
Spirit must be grasped by faith and not by 
feeling, and that the consciousness of his in- 
dwelling presence can never be felt until we 
grasp the fact, and submit ourselves to the 
will of the Spirit — explain why so many 
professed Christians are not conscious of 
the indwelling presence. Then lay hold of 
the fact — God indwelling you — and submit 
to the divine Architect that He may shape 
your character after His will, and you will 
become conscious of the indwelling Spirit. 

Manifested in the Daily Life. 

It is in the common affairs of life that we 
are to look for the Spirit’s manifestation. 
His work is not something separate and 
apart from ordinary experience. He does 
not give extraordinary powers, but simply 
uses those powers which He finds the indi- 
vidual in possession of already. It is true 
that the Apostles did receive the gift of 
tongues, but this was an additional endue- 
ment of the Holy Spirit above the ordinary 
or natural infilling. The promise which 
Christ Jesus made to His people, and which 
Peters says, is to as many as the Lord our 
God shall call, is not the extraordinary 
gifts of the Spirit, but the indwelling of the 


258 


PLACE OF DOCTINE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE TO-DAY 

Spirit. Jesus promises the Spirit himself. 

The trouble which the Lord has with us is 
that we covet a spectacular experience; we 
long to shine as stars of the first magnitude ; 
we desire the success shown in the year- 
book; we seek the Spirit’s power as an end 
rather than as a means to an end; we seek 
it for self-glory, rather than for the glory 
of God ; we seek the special gifts of the Spir- 
it, rather than the Spirit himself. We must 
not try to use the Spirit in the accomplish- 
ment of our work, but we must consent to 
let the Spirit use us in the accomplishment 
of His work. 

This is the secret of the Spirit’s power 
in us. We see men who are used of God and 
we ask the question: “How did they get 
hold of the Spirit?” They got hold of the 
Spirit by surrendering to the Spirit. The 
humblest follower of the Lord Jesus Christ 
to-day has the same Spirit dwelling in him 
that the most successful of God’s greatest 
workmen has. There is but one Spirit and 
he dwells in all God’s people. But listen, 
the thing that makes the difference is the 
degree to which the Spirit is appropriated. 
A more active faith, a more complete self- 
surrender will bring a larger inflow of 


259 


POWER FOR SERVICE. 


spiritual life; but they will not bring a 
better quality of life. They will bring a 
deeping life, but they cannot bring a deeper 
life. They will lead to higher living, but 
they cannot give a higher life. So the whole 
thing hinges upon the attitude of the indi* 
vidual towards the indwelling Spirit of God. 
What is lacking is not more of the Spirit, 
but more room for his presence in our 
hearts; a more complete self-surrender to 
His inworking; a more complete depend- 
ence upon His help ; a more wise and faith- 
ful co-operation with Him in all purposes 
of grace in our lives, in the lives of those 
around us, in the life of the world. While 
the Spirit is all for us, and while all He has 
is ours, yet the benefit which we actually 
receive from Him will be measured by the 
scope which He finds for His work of grace 
within us. 

The Leadership of the Spirit. 

The Christian ought to place special em- 
phasis on the leadership of the Holy Spirit 
in the present work of the Church in the 
evangelization of the world. When Jesus was 
preparing to leave this world He promised 
His followers to send the Comforter — the 
Spirit of Truth — who would lead them into 


260 


PLACE OF DOCTINE IN RELIGIOUS LIFE TO-DAY 


all truth. In fulfillment of that promise the 
Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost 
and took up his abode in the hearts of 
Christ’s followers. He has since that time 
been their spiritual illumination; the in- 
forming power of their thinking, leading 
them into the truth just so far as they dis- 
card all earth-born lights, and give them- 
selves up to His guidance. 

This does not mean that He makes them 
infallible, for the human element will al- 
ways be present, but it does mean that they 
will be given the “Spirit of wisdom and un- 
derstanding, the spirit of counsel and might, 
the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of 
the Lord.” (Isaiah 11:2.) They will not 
be wise beyond what is written, but they 
will be wise in what is written. They will 
not be wise beyond the teaching of the Mas- 
ter, but they will understand through His 
teaching the mind of the Master. 

This is the attitude which we are to take 
towards the Spirit. This is the place which 
we should give Him in our teaching. No 
pastor has thoroughly instructed his peo- 
ple in the will and word of God until he 
has taught them concerning the person and 
work of the Holy Spirit 
FINIS 


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